"As I said, my name is Dan and I'm... I mean, I was, Sam's best friend."

Dan's gentle voice reached Judy's ear, it had a hint of helplessness and guilt as he said that.

"W- Why was?" Judy asked, she somehow didn't expect Dan to be Sam's best friend, her reaction when she saw him was so weird after all.

"Well... A lot of things happened, I'll tell you all about it." He said with a faint smile before taking a sip from his coffee and adding:

"We were neighbours since a young age, I somehow can't remember a moment of my childhood when she wasn't with me, Sam was always a happy cheerful girl, and as you can see I'm not actually one of the most active people, yet she always dragged me with her wherever she went, we were inseparable..."

"This seems like a childhood sweethearts more than best friends." Judy couldn't stop herself from saying with a weird expression.

"I can't say I never had any interest in her. You know, a time comes when you reach a certain age and start developing feelings, and as you would expect mine were for her, but Then..." He answered with a faint smile but he stopped mid-sentence as if remembering something.

"Then what?"

"Then... I was the first one she told she was gay... I still remember that day, she told me she had something she wanted to talk to me about, so we met in a somehow secluded place and she told me that with a normal tone and expression, I remember that I froze for a few seconds, I... I couldn't accept it."

Judy was a bit surprised when she heard that but Sam did tell her that she had a girlfriend so she wasn't that surprised.

"I almost raised my voice and asked her shouting if she was joking because it wasn't funny at all, but then I saw her hands... Even though she tried to act normal and as if she was gonna accept whatever was going to happen, she was holding her hands tightly and her eyes were full of expectations and fear..."

"Swallowing what I was going to say, I calmed myself down and asked her, 'so what?' While smiling."

"She cried while smiling as she heard that before hugging me... She was always like that, seemingly strong and independent but she's quite weak and tends to overthink things, leading to her hurting herself in the passing..."

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"After she told me about her being gay she didn't tell anyone else for a while, she said that she wasn't ready and that she took a leap of faith with me because she felt pressured going through all of that alone, I couldn't understand what she was going through entirely but what she told me and what I saw was enough for me to know the amount of pressure she suffered."

"... Heh, I don't know how I ended up talking about all of that, anyway it is linked with what I wanted to tell you so no problem there, anyway a while after she told me that she came to me and told me that she might be in love, and what's more there was a big chance that the one she loved also had feelings for her, I still had some feelings for her so I can't say I took that news happily..."

While he started talking about the girl Sam loved he leaned forward, his gentle demeanour changed and he became more serious with a frown on his face.

"She said her name was Brittney, she was a girl older than her with a few years, we were in our last year of high school but she was on her third year of university, Brittney studied in our high school before and for some reason, she returned one day and that's when they met."

"They spent some time together that day and at the end of it Brittney gave her her phone number when she told me about her a long time had passed since that day so she had been talking with her a lot and they had spent more time together."

"I told her that I wanted to meet 'that' Brittney and she accepted happily, she seemed like a proud child trying to show off her favourite toy, and when I saw that girl I got why, Brittney was way too pretty, she also had a great personality and she seemed almost perfect, too perfect that I got jealous of her taking Sam, but I soon threw those thoughts away, since the time Sam told me that she was gay I decided that I would accept whatever she chose and that I should not let my feelings stand in the way of her happiness..."

"Now I know that that mindset is what pushed Sam to the depth of pain..." He had a guilty expression as he said that.

"Soon after, they started dating. Brittney was the perfect girlfriend or at least that what Sam told me and from what I saw when all of us were out having fun... Then it started..."

"A while after they started dating some of our mutual friends started complaining that Sam has been spending less and less time with them, I had been feeling something like that too, but I didn't want to speak about it because I knew that after people get a lover they would spend more and more time with them and less with their friends."

"I did feel something was wrong but I always thought that that was only because I still had feeling for Sam and that a part of me was searching for something wrong with her relationship with Brittney... I... I even told her that fights were normal in a relationship when she came to me saying that Brittney had been acting weirdly, I tried to be the best 'best friend' for her, without letting my personal feeling affect their relationship, not thinking that it might not be just my jealousy at work when I noticed some minor details..."

"When I finally noticed that there might really be something wrong, Sam had already cut contact with most of her friends..."

Since Dan started talking about Sam's girlfriend and her first relationship, Judy just sat there listening, trying to understand what all that was about, but the more she heard about her, the more she felt something was wrong.