Come on, skinny love

~I'll cast this as the story goes on!~

Do you remember sitting in your room as a child, and having your parents read you fairy tales?

Where the girl is always beautiful, always happy, always perfect.

She falls in love with the perfect boy at the perfect time, and that’s that. No questions asked, no second guessing.

And when she gets asked how she knows she loves him, she laughs and answers simply. “I just know.”

As you grow up, you question. What if it’s not real?

You grow up and you realize that those story books have been lying to you for sixteen years.

**

“Could you move over a little? Your hair is in my face.”

I rolled my eyes and looked over my shoulder at Jacey, who was contently spying on my text messages.  “Jacey, it’s just Luke. Why are you getting so freaked out about this?”

“Because you kissed him!”

I snapped my phone off and tucked it into my bag, taking a deep breath and trying to forget about that night. “Yeah, what’s your point?”

“Luke is your best friend. You can’t just brush this off like it’s no big deal.”

“It’s not a big deal! We just spent a lot of time together over the summer and he kissed me, big whoop.”

Jacey glared. “Just wait until you tell Rebecca. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t bite your head off.”

An obnoxious bell dismissed us from our homeroom block, which wasn’t anything more than ten minutes of socializing with a group of thirty kids. Instead of the normal hugs and excitement that the first day of homeroom would bring, Jacey had cornered me and interrogated me until I cracked.

Which, unfortunately for her, I still hadn’t.

I could feel her looking at me disapprovingly as we walked towards our lockers. I bit my lip and smiled in her direction. “So, what class do you have next?”

“Have you talked to him since?”

“No! It was last night, what would I have said?” I sighed. “It really wasn’t a big deal. I think he was just caught up in the moment, you know? However that’s supposed to go.”

We stopped at our lockers and Jacey stared me straight in the face. “You know that’s not true.”

I shut my eyes and pictured the moment in my head. We had been hanging out at the beach during the day, a big group of us. When the day was over Luke walked me home, and kissed me on the hill behind my house. I was in the middle of a sentence and before I knew it, he was kissing me.

He pulled away, flushed and panicking. I remember turning and walking in the direction of my house, while he was still standing on the hill.

Luke and I had been close since we were little. Always together, as everyone from school would say. He was my best friend, and I was his. We had never had anything romantic, nor had he ever hinted at it to me. Until that kiss, which was something I couldn’t wrap my head around.

I felt someone come up between Jacey and I. “So, I heard from a small Asian girl that you have a story to tell me.”

Danielle had wriggled her way between Jacey and I, flipping her brown hair out of her face as she stared me down. “Well?”

“Wait!” Jacey called. “Rebecca’s coming from her locker. She needs to hear too.”

I grabbed a binder and textbook for my next class. “This isn’t a big deal, Danielle.”

“I think it is.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to say yet!”

She shrugged. “Yeah, but if it wasn’t a big deal, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to convince us that it wasn’t.”

I glared. Not only was that true, but it hit home.

I was about to retort a response but a locker slammed loudly and Rebecca flew across the hallway. “Okay ladies, I’m here. And I hope you know, Isabella, that I nearly broke my leg trying to sprint across this hallway. I mean, these jeans are not meant to run in. The day I don’t wear a belt…” Rebecca sped off into a silent rant as Jacey hit her across the shoulder.

Danielle giggled. “Isabella, just tell us. Seriously, the suspense is killing me.”

I took a deep breath and Rebecca took a swig of water. Jacey laughed into her palm and Danielle looked annoyed with my procrastination.

“I kissed Luke.” I eventually managed to stammer, my eyes flying from face to face. Rebecca stopped drinking mid-swallow and began to cough dramatically. “I knew it! I knew that would happen! Finally, the best friend gets the girl!” she fell into a wheeze and Jacey patted her back.

Danielle blinked slowly. “You kissed him?”

“He kissed me.”

She snorted and a smile broke out onto her face. “I never knew you had feelings for him.”

“I don’t!”

Rebecca came to and smiled to herself. “Your children are going to be beautiful.”

I rolled my eyes. “You guys, stop! I don’t know why he kissed me but he did. We’re just friends. You won’t believe me, but it’s true. It was spontaneous and nothing more.”

Danielle shook her head. “It’s Luke. He’s a softie.”

Rebecca and Jacey nodded in agreement as we began to walk to our classes. I could tell that no matter how much I stressed it, my friends would never believe that it didn’t mean anything to either of us.

Luke and I had a complicated relationship. Never romantic, but sometimes considered too close, for a guy and a girl. He knew everything about me and I trusted him more than most other people. Was that so wrong?

We walked in silence until we had to part for our classes. I walked into my classroom, clutching the textbook tightly. Scanning the room for a desk, I found Luke sitting at the back of the room with one free desk in front of him. In all of the classes we had together last year, I had always sat in the desk in front of him.

I felt torn as I walked to the desk. Was it weird to sit with him now, or was it weird not to sit with him? I didn’t want to make things awkward but at this rate I wasn’t sure what would or wouldn’t do that.

I sheepishly sat down in the desk and pulled out my binder. A million thought whizzed around in my mind as I wrote my name over and over again on a piece of paper.

I felt a light touch on the top of my shoulder. It wasn’t a tap- more like a drag, as someone’s fingers slid across my back and traced on my skin. I smiled to myself. “Hi, Luke.”

“Can I talk to you, Bella?”

“We are talking, Luke.”

I heard him laugh quietly. “You know what I mean.”

I must have stiffened because his hand dropped from my shoulder and rested on the corner of his desk. I turned around to look at him and nodded slightly. “At the normal place?”

Luke smiled a big, toothy smile. I had never really noticed before, but his smile was contagious. I found myself smiling to myself as I turned back around.

His golden brown hair was almost shining in the sunlight. To think that I had kissed him last night was something I didn’t know how to react about.