"Hey, Emma, could I talk to you for a moment?" Archer Willows inquired, trying not to sound as scared as he was.
"Yeah, sure," Emma replied with a slightly confused face.
Archer always was a bit of an odd person. He was considered weird, confusing, and annoying. All of these were true, Archer was weird, confusing, and partially annoying. It was just part of who he was.
Archer led Emma to a private area away from people in a corner of the school. He took a deep breath and spoke.
"Well, Emma, we've known each other for a while now, and uh-, well… I just want to say that you're an amazing friend and a great person, and uh…" he stuttered along now, trying to speak clearly.
"What I'm trying to- what I was trying to say is-"
Say it Archer, he thought. It's not that hard.
But he could not say it. The words would not come out of his mouth. Then a new voice came in his brain, one that didn't belong to him, one that spoke in a commanding, irritated growl, Do it.
This simple, devilish sentence seemed to ignite its way down Archer's neurons like a spark on a fuse. Every cell in his vocal chords responded to its voice. Archer opened his mouth and found himself saying the words that would be his downfall, the ones that caused his spiral into the void of darkness:
"Emma, I like you."
It was like a bomb had suddenly defused in Archer Willows' brain. A terrible disruption and ceased to exist. Archer's brain felt whole again, in pure bliss, for this moment.
Emma did a double take, like she was trying to take these words in. Then she closed her eyes and sighed sadly. She opened her eyes and gave Archer an apologetic look.
"Archer, we have known each other for awhile now, but, well, I'm sorry to have to tell you this now, but you're like…you're like a brother to me. I'm truly sorry."
The bomb had been defused too early. It was reignited, and exploded, shrapnel ripping every remaining part of Archer Willow's sanity, and his mind splintered away.
That night was the first of the worst of his life. He held in his pain until he got into bed and turned off the lights. Archer opened his laptop and looked for something to do. Oddly, his hands seemed to move on their own, searching up "The Next Right Thing".
He knew the lyrics, and as the song progressed, he sang softly with it, not realizing he was crying the whole time until the song concluded and he felt his tears leaking like a faucet onto his sheets. Archer couldn't stop crying for what felt like years. All the pain, all the trouble he had ever had that he'd bottled up for so long had burst with the arrival of the newest failure. People always told Archer, "your fears can't hurt you if you face them", but Archer Willows biggest fear? Rejection.
Archer didn't sleep, he couldn't. He rarely slept at all over the next few months. His depression got worse, and he got angrier with life as time went on. His friends didn't even know about what had happened. It was too painful to recount it anymore than he already had. For the rest of the school year, Archer was more miserable than he had ever been.