Ethan stared at the equation scrawled across his notebook, the elegant mathematics offering a solace he couldn't find anywhere else. Each variable, each constant, obeyed defined rules, a stark contrast to the chaotic equations of his own life. He chewed on the end of his pen, the plastic yielding slightly under the pressure of his anxiety.
His phone buzzed. A text from Clara: 'Coffee? Library, 3 PM?' A nervous flutter tickled his stomach. Clara. The axis around which his world seemed to rotate.
He met Clara a year ago at a mathematics Olympiad training camp. Brilliant and fiercely independent, Clara was everything Ethan wasn't. Confident, sociable, seemingly untouched by the darkness that haunted him. He was drawn to her light, like a moth to a flame, a light he now felt desperately dependent on.
He glanced at his reflection in the dusty window of the library. He looked tired, haunted. Dark circles ringed his eyes, betraying the sleepless nights he spent battling his own demons.
He thought back to his high school years. He used to have a close friend, Liam. Their relationship morphed into something resembling excessive dependence, each relying on the other for validation and company. He remembers how things changed when Liam realized Ethan had transferred all social life into just a connection between them. The pressure eventually crushed Liam. His memories filled with a sense of deep regret. It wasn't something he meant to do to his friend, but he ended up relying solely on that friendship, scaring Liam away and forcing him to find his own circle of friends.
3 PM arrived. Clara smiled as he approached the table they always occupied. 'Hey, you look exhausted,' she said, her brow furrowed with concern.
'Just…mathematics got me up late,' he mumbled, avoiding her gaze. The real reason was that he spent half the night worrying that Clara was starting to pull away.
As they sipped their coffee, he tried to focus on what she was saying about her latest project. He wanted to ask if anything was bothering her, why her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, but the fear of hearing a truth he couldn't handle paralyzed him. The fear of dependence also silenced him. After Liam walked out on him, it seemed every friendship had to be maintained perfectly or people would vanish. In truth, however, it felt more as if Liam never forgave him for stifling the freedom he used to have, and since then he began fearing the crushing, stifling and isolating aspects of a friendship with Ethan.
Suddenly, Clara reached across the table and gently took his hand. Her touch sent a jolt through him. 'Ethan, are you okay? You seem… distant.'
He flinched. 'Yeah, fine. Just… overwhelmed, I guess.' He hated lying to her, but honesty felt like an unbearable risk.
Clara studied him intently. 'You know you can talk to me, right?'
The floodgates threatened to break. He wanted to tell her everything – his self-harming thoughts, his crushing anxieties, the black hole of despair that seemed to consume him from the inside. But the words caught in his throat, strangled by fear.
Instead, he forced a smile. 'I know. Thanks, Clara.'
Later that night, back in his cramped apartment, he picked up a razor blade. The cold steel was a familiar comfort. The release was always so quick, so… quiet.
He hesitated. Clara's face flashed in his mind – her genuine concern, the unwavering patience in her eyes. He imagined her reaction if she ever found out.
He put the blade down. But the urge didn't vanish, just festered. Another text arrived.
'Thinking of you,' it read. Followed by a heart emoji.
The wave of relief was overwhelming. He closed his eyes, the word “Renai” whispered unbidden, but then replaced with the feeling of extreme worry and stress he was forcing onto her, just like what had happened with Liam. Is it truly friendship if that kind of strain is placed onto people?
That single text illuminated something crucial within himself.
A slow smile crept across his face. Was this just intense friendship, a shared connection forged through long hours and complicated maths? Was he beginning to blur the lines in ways he couldn't separate them anymore?
The next day at school, Clara noticed the change immediately. Ethan was brighter, somehow lighter. When Clara tried discussing problems with him, the smile in her eyes caused something deep inside his heart to be kindled once more, pushing the doubt away from him, allowing him to trust his judgement on matters.
His initial joy was washed away the instant Clara said these words 'I actually have a confession to make...
His stomach sank into his boots, his knees wanted to lock and refuse to carry him anywhere. What he interpreted was friendship on one side and burgeoning romance and/or extreme dependence from his side wasn't what Clara was planning. Before panic set in, he nodded, wanting to brace for impact and get ready for things he was too afraid of to hear. He wasn't as skilled in the art of lying like most people seemed to be, so his feelings must have been obvious to her for sometime. It became very difficult to stop self-harming when these situations come along. And while in some measure the idea of love pushed things away for him. Things also grew scarier in terms of trying to be accepted.
Clara continued 'I have been seeing someone since the winter holiday.
Each word felt like a slow but carefully considered death to anything he was dreaming up between himself and Clara. A romance blooming to life while they struggle to overcome the many burdens he felt were chained to him. Ethan, at that point was broken out of his own mental landscape, and back into the real world he wanted to be removed from. Reality bit deeper than any mathematics test he would sit.
Her words, simple as they were, hit him with the force of a tidal wave. He felt the world tilt beneath his feet, the library blurring around him.
'Oh,' he managed to croak, his voice barely audible. His own internal emotions were at a peak of discordancy.
'I didn't want to keep it from you any longer,' Clara said, her gaze searching his face. 'You're my best friend, and I value our friendship more than anything.'
The word 'Renai' hung in the air, heavy with irony. His initial worry was proven true after all. Clara saw their relationship only as a friendship with very defined borders and he's misread the entire script with his assumptions, that a love between them may be inevitable with only patience as a requisite. That patience didn't exist at this moment, she seemed to be ready to sprint into this with whoever else, making that gap something impossible to overcome.
But this only forced the negative internal loop even tighter in his mind, it just grew louder than whatever noise they created from having coffee in that library.
The friendzone. And just like the crushing weight and isolating sensation his initial friend was afflicted by, he too began experiencing and drowning.
He forced another smile, the muscles in his face aching with the effort. 'That's great, Clara. Really.' His voice sounded hollow, even to his own ears.
That was the key point where things broke away from just pure friendship, in some cruel, twisted way. And it was impossible to reverse this process once things already became this complicated.
Clara seemed to see through his facade, her expression softening with concern. 'Are you sure you're okay, Ethan?'
'Yeah,' he lied again, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. 'Just… happy for you.' He'd just ruined all possible situations out of his intense dependence, just like Liam experienced when that ended. After it ended it's only created a chain of distrust and depression, something he couldn't break out of. No one knows about this secret because this is nothing but Ethan making things awkward. Making other people more distanced from what they actually sought.
Ethan quickly excuses himself, the crushing grip he held within, just to break down. This entire plan he wrote was only getting closer to self-destruction and the only possible path that lies before. Because he's made friends with lies, expectations and nothing pure.
As Ethan leaves the Library and comes home he enters into an extreme case of isolation that quickly breaks through into self harming, it seems he just cannot function correctly around other people.