I wake up to two missed calls. Both from him.

Mark. Formerly a Bro. Currently whipped. Frequently calling me the past couple of days.

Well, fuck him. He can’t just drop his bros like they were nothing and expect them to call him back. What the fuck does he expect? That after all this time, I’m gonna pick up and be like “Yeah, dude. It’s cool,” like it didn’t happen? Fuck that. Fuck him.

He was the one that always said “Bros before hos.” Didn’t that mean anything to him? Being a bro means not letting stuff like that get in the way of your friendships. How could he do that after all I’d done for him? I was there when his grandma died; I was there when he got shot down by that girl freshman year. I even helped that douche move his couch into his dorm. That’s fucking LOVE right there!

Still, I want to pick up. I sort of do, but not really. I won’t. Not after all that shit he pulled on me.

“Sorry bro, I gotta go with Linds to this thing tonight and. . .” Spare me. That was every night, around with his attention-whore of a girlfriend, that bitch he met at a lame-ass party, that bitch who Yoko Ono’ed her way between us.

Fuck it. I decide to go on a walk with my iPod, let out some steam, ear buds blaring Incubus’s “Wish You Were Here.” A classic.

I can’t help but wonder what he might be calling me about. I hope it wasn’t about getting his shit. While things were going sweet for him and Yoko, and things were going sour for us, he made it obvious when he kept asking for his stuff back. He would be like, “Hey, do you have that movie I let you borrow? Could I get that one back? How about that hoodie I lent you?” Bullshit like that. He hadn’t asked for that movie for three months. Why did he ask for it then? What could that mean about us?

I wasn’t nice to him the last time we were on the phone. I invited him to a mixer, and he was all like, “Yeah, could Lind’s come?” I was so mad. I didn’t want to see that bitch every time I saw my friend, so before I hung up, I told him, “Bros before Ono’s, dude. That’s all I’m saying”

Since I haven’t heard from him in three weeks, he obviously didn’t get my meaning, or maybe he did, the dumb fuck.

The song is almost over, so I start it over again and keep on walking, kicking rocks along my way.

Still, I try to think positive. Maybe he dropped her after understanding what he was doing to our friendship. Maybe she died (well, maybe not), maybe things will go back to the way they were. But do I want to go back and have everything be like it was? He could be a real asshole sometimes, making fun of the girls I thought were hot, eating all the shit in my apartment like it was fucking free. Did I want all of that back in my life?

While listening to the song, I can’t help but remember the time we went and saw Incubus in concert. We had finally managed to get tickets, close to the front. Best concert ever. I remember halfway through “I Miss You,” he yelled to me “I love you, man! Bros before hos!”

Bros before hos.

It hit me after a while, an epiphany while listening to my ear buds, what I needed to do. I just thought in my head for a moment: “He needs you, bro.”

That was all the time I needed. I picked up the phone.

We meet up outside of his dorm, obviously nervous, not sure how the other dude was feeling. Still, I play it cool.

“So, dude. You and Linds broke up?” No “Yokos” need to be thrown in. It isn’t the time for name-calling.

He stands there awkwardly, shrugs. “Yeah. She blew some kid last week at a party. Just told me.” Resisting the urge to smile, I think, “Yeah, she blew it, alright.” But now isn’t the time.

This is our time now. A Broment is in progress.

No words are said. I just shrug my shoulders, and he shrugs his. He stands there, waiting for a sign from me that things are cool between us. I’m still not sure if things are cool, but they have to be. He needs me.

So I give him a love tap and tell him, “Bros before hos, man.” Apologetically, he replies. He looks me in the eyes, and with meaning, says:

“Yeah man, bros before Ono’s, dude,” and things are cool. Things are more than cool. I put our favorite Incubus song, ‘Dig’ and sharing the ear buds, L and R, we walk down the sidewalk together, close, but not quite touching.