How exactly will one feel when he found out that the person he has got a crush on has got a crush on your best friend? I bet it has got to hurt a lot. Well, I think it might have happened to me, though I am not that sure myself, but I know what I felt.

Madison and I have been the best of friends for 4 years now. We understand one another very well and know exactly what the other feels. We have been in the same class for those 4 years we became friends and are almost like sisters to one another. After high school, we had actually decided to enter the same college but the results we got for the GCSEs was not really that good for the college we wanted to go to. Madison was able to enter into a certain college, the same college I was able to enter just as well but I did not know that I could. Hence, when I found out that I could, I had already missed 2 weeks of orientation for the school.

Madison made a lot of friends; she finds it easy to make friends. This differs from my case because I am very shy and finds it difficult to make friends. I spent the last 2 weeks of the whole 1 month orientation period alone, with only 1 friend made. God willing, Madison and I got into the same class for another year. However, in the new class, she had with her those friends she made in her orientation group, Keith and Adrian.

I was told the first impression the guys had of Madison when she came in was that she had military background because she had on our old school skirt which was green. It was very obvious that she was not from the army because she is very delicate. Keith is very shy, just like me and found it hard to talk to me so he asked Madison questions about me instead. All he wanted to know about me was if I had military background, which was a yes. Adrian is fun to talk to because he could easily get others to talk to him. We were all having a talk when he mentioned about their first impression of Madison. Adrian also let slip that girls who has got military background turns Keith on. I began to wonder, was Adrian talking about the first impression encounter or was he talking about me? Truthfully, I found myself liking Keith even though we hardly talk to one another. That is to say, I found myself having a crush on Keith. I went back home that day thinking about what I had just learnt.

That night, I had a nightmare. I woke up in the morning feeling very tired and Madison’s name on my lips. I knew from there that I had indeed dreamt of her as well as Adrian and Keith. In the train on the way to school, I could not bring myself to talk to Madison as per normal. I was scared; I did not want to have bad thoughts of Madison. She knew of my feelings for Keith. It did not seem that she heard what Adrian said the day before. I gave Madison a short smile when she asked if anything was wrong and shook my head no to her question.
We were on the way home when I decided to be truthful the reason why I was very quiet. I told her about the dream, which I do not really have a memory of. I told her that I knew the nightmare has got something to do with the 3 of them. Madison actually had been going out with this guy I knew, Franz. She told me that she found Keith to be quite disturbing. I went home feeling a little guilty because I was trying not to harbour bad feelings for Madison, at the same time, I felt a little bit better.

What I felt that day after the discussion was bad. It feels as though a knife had been sliced through my heart. I knew all along that Madison do not have anything for Keith because she enjoys being with Franz. I felt really bad because I nearly harbour bad feelings for her. But I knew, deep down, what I felt was not about her, it was about Keith. How much it hurts to know that maybe the guy I had a crush on has a crush on my best friend, it is quite an unexplainable pain.

Excerpt from THE LIFE AND PAIN OF ERINA PEVERELL COLLINS BYRNE GRYFFINDOR