You didn’t ask me to be your girlfriend and to be fair, I didn’t ask you either. But you had your own way of begging for my permission to be more than my best friend.
I wasn’t sure about your feelings for me. After our almost-kiss, I knew there was something there.
It was just a matter of what you felt for me. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that it was love, but I assumed that it was curiosity. You wanted to know what a girl felt like and I happened to be within reach.
Not that I minded. One kiss that didn’t reach my lips couldn’t ruin years of intimacy. We were just that close.
Still, it confused me. Were friends supposed to kiss? You were dating Harry at the time so you technically had a boyfriend. Wasn’t it cheating if we held hands or did things that friends didn’t normally do?
I wasn’t sure where the line was between you and me. I didn’t think there ever was one. You were a part of my soul, connected to me in ways I couldn’t begin to describe. And I felt this, especially on nights when you slept in my bed.
It was happening more often so I got into the habit of leaving my window unlocked. Like clockwork, you climbed up the side of my house around 11:00 p.m., easily grappling onto the brick and ivy before expertly pushing yourself through the glass. I joked that you would make an excellent bank robber the first time you came in, but you didn’t laugh.
You were never in a good mood when you snuck in during those late hours. I didn’t ask, but judging by the screams I heard across the street, I assumed this was because things weren’t peaceful at home.
I didn’t pry. It wasn’t my place to. There were always certain things that you couldn’t tell me, terrible things that pushed you beneath my sheets. Looking back, I wish I had asked when you cried into my pillows. Maybe somewhere among those awful secrets, I would find the answer to your disappearance.
I lost track of the number of nights I held you, hours spent comforting you until the tears stopped and I heard your steady breathing. I could never rest properly seeing you so distressed, closing my eyes only when I was absolutely certain that you were asleep.
Somehow, your sorrow brought us closer together. In a twisted way, I was relieved. You were drifting away after that date, turning into someone unrecognizable during the week you didn’t speak to me. I chalked it up to growing pains.
Despite your naivete, you were always more mature than me in the obvious ways. Specifically in the physical way.
You were between a C and D-cup, your chest uncertain which size it should settle on. You had the dual misfortune of breasts that were not only uneven but also large, telling me on more than one occasion about how lopsided you felt.
The discomfort quickly passed when you realized that your curves could be used to your advantage. You did away with your dresses, abandoning them for trendy crop tops, short skater skirts, and ripped jeans. My eyes became intimately acquainted with your belly button, which sported a piercing.
As your clothes got skimpier, you grew more distant and abandoned me for dates with Michael. I didn’t understand why you had to leave me behind. Being my friend and being his girlfriend weren’t mutually exclusive.
Maybe I didn’t get it because the whole world still saw me as a kid. My body was stuck in middle school, flat all over with no sign of growing. And no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t like boys.
I would have gone back to being friends with Tiffany again, but she was also busy with her boyfriend. For that depressing week alone, Evan was my only willing companion.
My life was a cosmic joke. I wished that I was the one laughing at it instead of being forced to live through it.
To his credit, he wasn’t the worst to be around. The Evan who liked me was a slight improvement over the boy who spent the better part of my formative years bullying me. At least this version of him attempted to make my life easier.
He sat with me at lunch, refusing to let me eat by myself. Despite his past cruelty, he was surprisingly empathetic, picking up on my moods with ease. He sensed that I was sad without you and devised ways to distract me.
During the seven days of that strange week, the person who made my childhood miserable tried to make me happy. On the first day, he gave me a box of chocolates and a rose, neither of which I liked.
“I told you I wanted to be friends,” I said, eyeing the box warily.
“Can’t friends give each other chocolate?”
I pushed the heart-shaped box back to him. “I won’t take this.” It was too early for Valentine’s Day.
“Just eat it. I don’t expect anything from you.”
I shook my head adamantly. “I don’t like these chocolates and I definitely don’t like roses.”
“But you kept my rose before.”
“That was my mom. She liked your gift. Do you want me to give these to her as well?”
On the second day, he showed up with a bouquet. Immediately, I tossed them into the trash.
“I know you don’t give flowers to your friends so you better cut it out.”
Even that didn’t deter him. “What kind of girl doesn’t like flowers?”
“The kind that’s allergic to most of them.”
“Oh.” He was quiet after that.
On the third day, I thought he showed up empty-handed. We ate quietly side by side. I decided that he was tolerable when he wasn’t talking and accepted his presence. When the bell rang signaling the end of the period, he placed a small black leather bracelet in my hands.
“Before you ask me to take it back,” he said, “I give this bracelet to all my friends.”
I slipped it around my wrist. It was simple and unromantic, something I would have worn on my own.
From that day forward, I grew more comfortable around Evan. I accepted the idea that he might replace you in the way that people got used to cloudy days when they spent long stretches of time without seeing the sun.
He was OK and OK had to be good enough for me. I didn’t have much of a choice. On my fifth day without you, I decided to ask him something that had been on my mind ever since we went to the movies.
“Why do you like me?” I was fiddling with the bracelet, oddly nervous about how he might answer. I couldn’t return his feelings whether they were real or fake.
“You’re the first guy to confess to me,” I added, trying to fill the awkward silence. “And you should tell the truth if we’re going to continue to be friends.”
He chewed his sandwich thoughtfully. “I can’t figure you out. There’s something mysterious about you, Nana. One moment you hate me and the next you want to know about my feelings.”
“I’m just not sure why anyone would like me,” I admitted. “Especially someone who thinks I’m ugly.”
He winced, remembering the countless number of times he hurled that insult at me. “I’m sorry.”
“You shouldn’t apologize for telling the truth.”
He shook his head. “Not if it isn’t true anymore. I don’t mean those things, especially what I said about your dad.”
I stiffened at the mention of the latter. Those words were blocked by my memory, too horrible to recall.
“But that doesn’t answer your question, does it? I’m not sure why either. I think it’s because you’re a puzzle I can’t solve. I feel like you’re always hiding something.”
“Everyone hides something. Is this because I don’t talk a lot?”
My question, although innocent enough, made him smile. “It’s not because you’re quiet. People can shut their mouths and speak through their faces. Most of them do. Maybe you’re just special.”
I nodded thoughtfully, ignoring the fact that he essentially called me an emotionless rock.
“If you knew who I was, do you think you’d stop liking me?”
He blanched at my question. “No. Of course not. What are you even saying?”
Judging by how flustered he was, the answer was yes. Once I took away the “mystery” of who I was, he’d leave. Or maybe that was my insecurity talking.
But it wasn’t like he didn’t know me. We had gone to school together our whole lives, from elementary to high school. Plus, all those years of bullying meant he was familiar with my inadequacies.
He was lying. It wasn’t out of character for him, but a small part of me was disappointed. I wanted him to be a friend because I had no one else. Being around him felt like a mistake.
Yet I stayed his friend even when you came back to me. Despite all he had done, he remained a part of my life. I never trusted him entirely and I would later find out that it was for good reason too.
A year later, I didn’t tell him that I was leaving for Japan. No one knew except for my mother and I. We left in a hurry, swept up by the whirlwind of her middle-aged romance.
But maybe I should have for what little we had together.
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