The way he looked when he said she made his heart hurt made my heart hurt. He always talked to me about her, but this time, I could see that he was actually truly hurt. The past couple of weeks he had deflected is pain by mourning the loss of an easy lay, but now he was finally letting himself feel. And I hadn't realized how much he had been keeping to himself until last night. When I was just drunk enough to keep prodding him, maybe a little too deeply, with questions about his feelings, and he was just high enough to answer them honestly and completely.
"It just… seeing her… made my heart hurt, like a kind of pang, like... when you're mom's mad at you or something…" he trailed off, a little insecure of his emotions, then looked up at me. I was sitting on his bed in his dorm, and he was in his desk chair right next to me. He leaned his head against my lap and I gave him a small sympathetic smile, running my fingers through his hair to comfort him. I had an inexplicable, overwhelming urge to protect him, like he was my responsibility. I think it was seeing him look this helpless. He had always been cool and unaffected by everything, but this one experience, one girl completely tore him apart. I kept running my fingers through his hair for a few seconds until he turned his head to look at me.
"What are you doing? Why are you playing with my hair?" he asked, a little standoffish.
"I don't know, it's kinda soft," I replied. I didn't want him to feel self-conscious.
"Is it really? It feels kind of like a pity thing." I could tell that he was starting to feel vulnerable and that he didn't like that.
"Yeah, it's pretty soft," I reassured him. "It's not a pity thing."
"Really? Because it really feels more like a pity thing." He wasn't convinced.
"Well, maybe it's more for me than it is for you," I responded, not totally sure of what I meant by that; maybe that I wanted to feel like I was taking care of him or something. I don't think he really understood what I meant either, but he leaned against my lap again, and I continued to run my fingers through his hair. He relaxed a little, resting his head totally in my lap now, and we stayed like that for the rest on the night. Every once in a while he would say something about her, and I would just nod and keep stroking his hair.