18 MONTHS, 23 DAYS AGO: 2:23 A.M.
I probably shouldn’t drive, but I find myself walking out into a heavy rainstorm anyway just to get away.
“I think I love you?” I shake my head at the asphalt in the parking lot at Theresa’s apartment building. “What the hell are you thinking?”
I’m not thinking, that’s the thing.
Thunder rolls and lightning flashes across the night sky. My keys are slippery in my hand, and no, I won’t drive, but I’m not staying in there. Not where she just stared at me with those wide and confused eyes. Not where I knew after one solid glance that she wasn’t going to say it back.
I hit the unlock button on the key fob, and right after my headlights light up the twenty feet of pouring rain I have to push through to get to my car, a voice echoes across the parking lot.
“Alec! You stop right now!”
I glance over my shoulder. Theresa stands huddled in a rain jacket under the main entryway to her building. She waves me back, and I wipe away some raindrops trickling from my eyebrows.
“Don’t worry!” I call back at her. “I’m not driving!”
Her shoulders lift, then fall dramatically. She kicks off her flip-flops and bolts into the rain after me.
“You can’t leave!” she shouts over the storm when she gets to me. “We can’t…we can’t just leave it like this.”
Her wide eyes plead with me to stay and talk it out, though I really just want to sleep the rest of the night away. But I’m not good at saying no to her, and although she’s shivering and the rain is pounding down onto her back, she plants her bare feet in a stance that I know means she’s not budging.
I shake my head and pull the zipper on my jacket. May as well cover our heads if we’re going to have a conversation in the middle of a downpour.
“Look,” I say, sheltering at least our upper halves. “I told you already. Tequila makes my tongue loose.”
“No.” She looks at me dead on, blinking away a drop of rain. “Don’t try to shrug this off again. You said you loved me four times tonight and took it back, but you didn’t take back the last one till just now. After you ran out on me!”
“Well…I…”
“Alec,” she says, and that pleading look is back in her eyes. “Tell me the truth. Did you…did you mean what you said?”
The storm decides on another round of thunder, probably to fill the silence that is now permeating the small cocoon we’ve created for ourselves.
I’m not drunk. I may have been drinking, but I feel sober as hell. I can’t seem to get a grip on what I want to say, how I want to say it, because once it’s out there for real, I can’t take it back. And I’m looking at one of my best friends and I love her, and I don’t want to lose her, and I don’t want things to change unless they’re for the better, and I know she doesn’t want things changing either. I know she doesn’t want anything serious right now. I know that she’s been heartbroken and hurt recently and that she’s confused about what’s going on between her and her sort-of boyfriend and that this is too soon for her.
I can see it all crumbling around us: my declaration, her not returning the feelings, and then our friends will feel like they’ll have to pick sides, and worst of all, I can’t pick Theresa’s side and she can’t pick mine. We’ll be on opposite teams for the rest of our lives.
I can see it all, know it will happen, and still…I don’t care. She asked me for the truth, and I’m going to give it to her.
“I love you.”
There. It’s out there. I’ve said it and I want to say it again.
“I love you.” I take a step closer, drop my arm around her shoulder, and pull her into me. “And I really would love to kiss you right now.”
A small breath escapes her wet lips, warming my chin and neck. I imagine us in a different world entirely, where those words wouldn’t seem so scary to say. Where they’d be natural and playful and she’d tilt her head up to grant me my request.
Another breath hits my chin, this one long and deep, and I adjust the jacket over us so that nothing permeates her thought process right now. Because she’s not saying no. She’s not saying anything, which means she’s truly thinking about it, and that is more than I could’ve asked for.
“I…,” she says, her voice cracking on the small syllable. “I…can’t.” Her eyes quickly flick up to meet mine. “And it’s not you. It’s not you at all. I just…I won’t be able to give you back what you give me, and that’s not fair.”
Even though I knew the answer I was going to get, it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. I thought that living with the secret was rough, but the way my entire soul feels like it’s just been jammed in a trash compactor makes me realize that having the truth out there will make life unbearable. My heart stops pumping, almost as if it no longer has the energy to keep going. I’m used to disappointment. I’ve been rejected in 90 percent of what I’ve set out for. Look at my resume. It’s full of almost-lead roles, almost-scholarships, and almost-loves. I’m the guy who arrives at the train station a second after the train departs. I’m used to the feeling.
At least I thought I was.
A wall of tears forms in Theresa’s eyes, and now I’m the one quickly coming to help explain this away.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I get it.” She doesn’t look convinced, letting out a small indignant noise through her nose and shaking her head. Our eyes still stay connected, though.
“I promise you,” I say, “I get it.”
She blinks, and a tear falls from her right eye and mixes with the rain on her cheek. “I don’t want this to change anything.”
“It won’t.” It’s the first lie I’ve ever told her that has flowed so naturally off my tongue.
“It will,” she argues, a small smile poking through. “We’re going to be all awkward around each other now.”
“Absolutely we will,” I joke, trying to ignore the pounding of my tired heart.
She lets out a tiny laugh and nudges her shoulder into mine. “I’m terrified of losing you as a friend.”
“Theresa,” I say with all the sincerity I can muster through the heavy disappointment still dragging me downward, “I promise you that won’t happen.” I manage a grin and take a step back to get some breathing space. “You’re gorgeous, but I’ll get over ya.”
“Stop it.”
“What?”
“Joking around.”
“Thought you didn’t want things to change.”
“You’re making me laugh when I should be feeling like shit over this.” She swipes at the water collecting on her exposed wrist. “I may not be in love with you, but I do love you, and it sucks to say things that hurt you. Making me laugh is so not what I deserve.”
“Trust me, it’s more for my benefit than yours.” Another lie, and it leaves a sour taste on the back of my tongue. I don’t want to ever get used to lying to her.
She reaches out and pinches my stomach, then keeps hold of the material of my shirt and pulls me two steps forward. Her cheek pushes up against my chest and her arms slide around my waist, holding me tight.
These touches are going to cripple me. I stand there, unresponsive, contemplating whether I’m angry at her for throwing easily misinterpreted signals or happy that we can hold each other as friends—that she loves me enough to not play with my head, and is honest about not being ready to give her heart away. I look down at her shaking against my chest. I feel what she’s saying without the words being spoken. She’s honestly sorry that she can’t give me what I want. It only makes me fall deeper and deeper—but that isn’t her fault or her problem.
My tired heart gives out completely, and though I really feel like pushing her off, my arms drop around her shoulders, taking the jacket with them.