Instead Of Console Our Friend “It Will Be Okay"…

“Are you okay?”, I asked Harry anxiously. Even from this distance, I could see his eyes swelled up. His blue eyes were once clear, turned dull with strings of red veins surrounding the irises from staying up all night. The reason was clear. His boyfriend had again, betrayed him for god-knows-how-many times; but never had it been as detrimental as this one. This time, the worst of all cards had been pulled out. He told Harry the irreversible words — “I love you, Harry,” he said, “But I’m not gay enough to be your life partner”.

When Harry muttered these words, sorrow uttered out in his every syllable. “It’s okay, I’m okay,” Harry said, as if the more he said the word, the more his brain can do the trick. “I think he is right. He said he was sad but also to think for me, if I get married to a woman, it'd also be easier for my family to accept and I would be much happier.”

Was it one of the weirdest times in my life, I would not know. Harry and I for the course of our 10 years friendship, casually clashed with each other whenever it came to his own emotional mishaps. I hated people who gaslighted their ways out and sadly, Harry had a talent at surrounding himself with them. Whether the root came from his childhood growing up as a child of divorce seeking for love, or from his teenage years trying to fit in as a queer man in a conservative community — I did not know. But what I knew for sure was that Harry had this empathetic response to protect and explain for those who hurt him. He did as if he could…