Five Years Ago:

"Hello?"

"Seriously, you decide to call me now, at 3 AM? This had better be important."

"It is, it is. I found her!"

"Define 'her'."

"The love of my life..."

And I went numb. He found the love of his life. The love. And what am I? He thinks he can just call me up at any indecent time and throw a nuclear bomb at me...? Of course he can; I'm supposed to be the best friend...

Best friend? Sure, and it's the duty of every best friend to be happy and go all excited when their best friend finds the love of their life, in fact, it should come in a flow. For me, however, this flow was getting parched...'cause I was in love with him too.

"Hello? Helllloooo? You there?"

"Yeah yeah. WOW! Congrats! I'm so happy for you."

Gosh, it sounds like that facetious singer's song...whats that? Right, 'If We Were a Movie' by Miley Cyrus. Falling in love with the best friend while he falls in love with someone else?

"Thanks! I knew you would be happy for me!"

"But that is a rather peculiar way of putting it...you found the 'love of your life'?Seriously?I mean, 'cause you say that for every girl you ask out..."

I wanted to know, I was honestly curious.

"No...it's not like that with her...I know she's the one...there is no one like her in the entire world..."

Sure, sure.

"Mmhmm. Well what's her name? Tell me more about the girl who decided to drop grass to my very dumbass friend!"

Sarcasm and humor were practically the only masks I had to disguise my slowly crumbling heart and my quickly running tears.

"Oh c'mon! If you could have fallen for me, anyone could have!"

I froze. So he still wants to flirt? Even after everything? How blindcould he be? But I went on...because I couldn't afford to let him know anything.

"Shut up! I could never fall for a bimbo like you. She must have been really desperate if she chose a guy like you."

"Hey! Don't say that about her! She could have any guy she wanted...but she chose me!"

"My my, already so protective? I can feel that my personal bodyguard is at the verge of giving his resignation."

Because that's how it was, he was protective of me and also my security blanket. He too, was my best friend.

"Of course not, no one could ever replace you, I assure you." I could imagine him smiling and rolling his eyes.

"Assurances aren't enough for me anymore..."

"What?"

Oops. Wrong move. Damage control time. This could be difficult, what with all the tears and the heartache...

"Nothing. I was just musing aloud..."

"Care to share? Why does it feel like you're hiding something from me?"

Hiding something? I was hiding sooobloody much from him. But I can't talk about this right now, I need to distract him.

"How many times do we have to get this straight? I. Tell. You. Everything. Butyou, Mister, are deviating from the matter in hand. Please! Tell me about her! I want to know." I pressed.

I no longer felt ashamed on faking my emotions around him anymore...whether it be when he breaks up with one of his girlfriends, or when he gets a new one...all the sorrow and happiness I share with him is fake. A farce. Because I knew, that if he found out what my thoughts reallywere, he'd be disappointed in me, and more or less, run away from me for being such a psycho...

...for being so madly in love with him.

"You really wanna know?" Excitement immediately colored his voice.

Fake. Fake. Fake.My alter-ego chanted at me. My very confident, careless, alter- ego.

But I faked it anyway.

"Sure I do!" Putting in as much as interest as I could muster, at about 3 in the morning.

"She's amazing, you know? She's extremely beautiful with large blue eyes and..."

He went on. And on. About her. The love of his life.And I did not listen. I just uttered the 'mmhmm's and the 'wow's and the 'you're so lucky's, at the right places.

Because I was numb all about.

Three Years Ago:

"Hey!"

"You!You. You. You."

"Uh huh. Nice way to greet a friend who is calling after such a long time..."

"That the point!Why din't you ever call?"

"You know...never had the time...you know how critical that year was for my career. Plus, with Dad' conditions and all..it was hard."

"So hard you couldn't even call your best friend?"

"I'm sorry, okay? Now can we please let that pass? I am calling you now, so you can either talk to me, or you can hang up!"

"Jeez lady!I was just poking around with ya! Anyways, so how has life been? Two years is long time."

"It sure is. I'm good. You tell me...how's she?"

I didn't really want to ask, but as the best friend...

"Oh she? She is still perfect. I don't know why you never met her. You just decided to move to a different country without so much so as even telling anyone about it, not even me! And then you send me an e-mail. An E-MAIL!"

"Well yeah...it all happened so fast...I din't really get the mind to inform you..."

I said every word half heartedly. I din't have the mind to tell him? He, who occupied every possible space in my very mind?

"Really? Anyways then, but now that you've called...everything's fine back again."

"Thanks." A little surprised that he thinks that.

"So...um...about her...hey...I really wanted to talk to you about this first, but since you were so off the globe, and the only contact being the inbox..I din't really know how to ask you...'cause I really did want to hear your voice when I spoke about it..." He trailed off.

I had seen enough chick flicks to know that when the hero of the movie stuttered, it meant that he was going to confess his undying love for the female lead, and how he had made the wrong decision by going after the wrong girl. And I also knew that chick flicks nevercame true.

"Please don't chase around the cat, just tell me."

Because my life was not a chick flick, but was a carefully designed hell trap. I knew something was wrong...worst case scenario: He wanted me to be the surrogate mother of his and his love's bastard child.

Touche.

"Okay, then. Well...I proposed to her...and she said YES!"

Uh uh. Worst case scenario: He is inviting me to his wedding.

With anotherwoman.

"...how awesome is it of her? She says that she wants you to be her bridesmaid!"

My life isn't a chick flick. It isn't a carefully designed hell trap either. Its a precisely structured torture chamber. So basically, I watch the love of my life, getting married to the love of hislife while I am required to be the bridesmaid of the bride?

Wow.

I can always say no. Say to no attend the wedding. Say no to being the bridesmaid.

But I can't. 'Cause I'm the best friend.

"Oh really? Gosh! I feel so honored."

"I know right? I knew she was just the one for me, as soon as I laid my eyes on her."

"Hmmm yeah. She's one fortunate girl. She'll be very happy with you. But hey listen? I have to go. I have some matters to attend to shortly."

"Sure. I'll see you a lot more now. Take care. Bye."

"Goodbye."

I hope he didn't notice how we din't have that whole discussion about whether its time for getting married or whether she's the right girl or not...and that I was way too happy than normal when he told me about this. I really hope he din't.

I just said yes to being the bridesmaid. Which meant all the duties of the wedding from the top to the bottom. Which also means that I have to get the wedding of my best friend ready. In other words, my love'swedding.

I can still take on the duties and the arrangements of the marriage. I will.'Cause I'm the best friend.

I don't really have it in me to see him get wedded in front of my eyes. I don't. I don't think I can be there.

But I don't have to vouch for anything.

I'm not sure I'll survive,long enough to see his wedding day.

The Wedding Day:

"Baby, she's stillnot here."

"Yeah I know, I tried calling her cell phone but she won't pick up her phone."

We were both in the same room. Yes. On our wedding day. I know that it was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding, but right now, I just didn't give a damn. My best friend, and also the wedding's bridesmaid was missing and that was all I could think about.

She took care of the wedding wonderfully. God knows how she managed it all on her own...the wardrobe, the planners, the cake...man, she even helped me select the rings. But for the past five days, I don't know what happened to her. She was just missing. She had already done all the arrangements beforehand and left one of the stupid looking, but apparentlyefficient wedding planners to take care of the finer details.

Even in this whole endeavourer, I don't why, and how,she managed to not see the bride...I found that so hard to believe, but both her and my blushing mate insisted that they had only spoken on phone, never met face-to-face...I don't why she did that...but thats how my bestie is, and yes I said bestie, I don't care how 16-year-old-girl that sounds, she does loopy things, and she has equally loopy reasons for doing it. I smiled a little at my thoughts.

"Its just half an hour left, and she's still not here, sweetie."

"I know, Baby, but I'm sure she'll be here any moment."

I really hoped she would. She promised me she would.

There was a knock on the door. I went ahead and opened it.

"There's a letter for you, Sir", the janitor handed out a letter to me.

"Thank you." And I closed the door.

The letter was in enclosed in fancy stationary and was addressed to me in handwriting. That handwriting seemed familiar.

It was herhandwriting.

"What is it, Sweetie?" She asked, but avoided moving, so that her gown's train wouldn't get ruined.

For some reason, I felt that letter was something that I was not to share with anyone else.

And I lied already, to my going-to-be-wife.

"Nothing baby, its just a far off relative of mine, giving us their blessing."

She took my lie. Thankfully.

I was unfolding the letter as quickly as possible, wishing it would reveal something about her whereabouts.

How correct my intuition was…as the contents of it would never be revealed to anyone else…ever.

The Letter:

Hey,

Miss me? I'm sorry I won't be able to make it to the wedding. I'm sure you guessed that already. :P

As I always do, I'll just cut the chase here, okay?

See, don't be angry okay, but I didn't want to tell this to you on my own. You remember 5 years ago when you had called me at 3 in the morning to tell me about her?(And man, was I pissed at you for waking me up. :D) Well just the next day, I was diagnosed with terminal stage blood cancer. I choose to forego the details even now, however, you can find out all about it from my oncologist if you're interested. So yeah. The doctors said I had a very limited time to live, and I wanted to spend those days making you happy. Right now I'm in the hospital. I am dying. They say I don't have a lot of time. So I thought I'd write this for my very special man. I told them to deliver this to you when I die. I hope I don't die on your wedding day. 'Cause it'll be really stinky if you had to taint your anniversary with my death anniversary.

There is also something else you should know. I love you. I have told you that a lot of times, but you just brushed it off as friendship. But I need to let you know now, that I am in love with you. You were the only thing that was constant in my life, you know? When my parents died, to when I fractured my foot to when I broke up with my only boyfriend ever…it was always you. I fell in love with you and I'm sorry. I never told you 'cause I didn't want to come in the way of you and your very perfect life. Every time you spoke about her, you sounded so happy, and I died a little on the inside. I always thought, that like every epic love story, one day, even you would fall in love with me and we'd have our happily ever after.

Guess that explains why I never saw her, huh? Don't you hold it up against me. I've said it earlier and I'll say it again. She is the luckiest girl out there and you'll keep her very happy.

I hope the wedding I arranged (yes I'm proud) is what you wanted.

A happy life to you,

Your best friend.

The Funeral:

Every one was done giving their service, when at last, he walked to her casket, looked at her calm, but lifeless body, and whispered, "I always did love you."

Thank you for reading.