The Value of a Friend

Disclaimer : House, M.D. belongs to FOX and David Shore

Yeah. Of course he wanted me to leave.

Because everybody would always want me to leave after everything in their lives finally worked.

And really, I just had to had Nolan talking to me to finally said it out loud. Because Nolan wouldn't be affected by it. He would not want me to leave just because I was miserable, he just wanted to find out what was wrong with me. As always. And for now, I just didn't know if Wilson would not leave too.

I had avoided him just because I didn't want him to try to talk to me again. I didn't want him to ask me again if I was really okay with going back to my apartment. Because I might have told him that I really was not okay with it. Or I might have told him that I really was okay, but he might have found out that I felt the opposite.

Nolan said that Wilson was putting Sam before me. But how couldn't he? He had wanted me almost dead to save Amber, so what was so wrong about kicking me out of his apartment?

Nolan was right when he said that what I had with Wilson was the closest thing I had to a safe relationship, but still, it hurt when he really was the one who wanted me to move out—not Sam. I started to like our new apartment, you know—including the piano he had gotten me. Though I already had expected it, it still hurt. Though I was sure that he would break up with her again, I couldn't stand not feeling hurt.

Cuddy.

Yeah, I had always liked her.

But what really bothered me today wasn't her. "It's not about Wilson," I had said. I wondered if Nolan ever noticed that I said it too fast. Because it was really about him.

Liking Cuddy wouldn't bother me as long as Wilson was with me. Because he would be there if something happened. Every argue I had with Cuddy, he would be standing in the middle of us. And just like when he had found out that I once had told Cuddy that I had always been interested in her, he would be with me to somehow comfort me to be able to deal with the rejection. Now that he wasn't around anymore, liking Cuddy started to become a bigger problem.

I had never talked to Wilson about this, because as soon as I went home, I would just spend some time with him and felt better. He sometimes just understood, too. Sometimes we would sit in front of our TV, drinking beer and watching some whatever-crap-being-on, then when it was late, we would say good night to each other and went to our rooms, and I would fell asleep, feeling better. And the next morning, we would act like nothing had happened.

But now that I was back to my apartment, I just knew that I would feel like crap. I would sit in front of my TV, watch whatever-crap-being-on, drink some bottles of beer, but I would be alone.

Maybe he wouldn't be gone, but he wouldn't be there, too. He wouldn't be there after a crappy day at the hospital. He wouldn't be there after a tough case. He wouldn't be there after I drowned myself in alcohol. Because he would be somewhere else. With Sam. Because he had a life—while mine was always stuck around him. And I knew that I would miss him. Coz I would need him and he wouldn't be there anymore.

Maybe that was why I had let Alvie stayed in my apartment. At least I wouldn't have gotten bored. He had been a great distraction. But see? He left too after I had saved him. I was just trying to express that I really had considered him as a friend.

This so-called-messed-up-friendship with Wilson wasn't the best I could do. But he was the best I could get. Because he stayed. It wasn't because what I had done for him—let alone to him, but in fact, he was the only one who would be willing to call me as his best friend after all of those. Sometimes, I even wondered how he could do that—I wouldn't friend me. Because until now, deep down I still believed that he would still come if I called—though I knew that I had disappointed him too many times.

Wilson was not a consolation prize. He was the best gift I could ever get in my life, for even doing nothing good in particular. And that was what I valued in him.