*There once was time I had a brother. A friend so close we started calling each other "brother and sister". We were classmates, raised together since kindergarten, hanging out outside of school and calling each other nonstop when one was away. But it got lost. In eighth class he got snarkier. His responses colder, more sarcastic, he got ignorant, got closer to other girls who were more..."chill and laid back" as he said. All these changes started during the three months of summer holidays. By our freshman year he hated anyone reminding him how close and warm our relationship used to be. He stopped responding. Showing up. Sitting by my side. He got closer to bad influences. During our sophomore year he was clearly showing his hatred towards me. Avoiding even glancing at me. He started hanging around boys who smoked and often engaged in street fights. Not some goofy ones. Serious, complicated ones where no one knew who else was involved. So I stopped trying to get him back. It was already too late. He had fully turned. Though throughout these three years I had continued feeling for him. The deeper the wound of his absence in my heart became, the deeper my love for him grew. I fell for him. And it pained me through and through to see the boy I loved, turn to a man I have never known. And I continued seeing something still flickering in him. Some light still left in him.

His mother didn't know. She always adored our relationship. Loved me and cared for me like her own child. He had always been troublesome kid in childhood and I was somehow always his bridge to the calmer, light life. And she didn't know what had happened to our friendship. Everytime I got hurt by his actions, I would fiercely open my mobile to call his mother and tell her the truth. But I never could. How could I tell the woman I nicknamed "second mum" that her son had become the worst version of himself? I couldn't.*