Worth the Risk

Chapter twenty

For the past month, August and I have been meeting up at the viewpoint of the Vesuvius-hill. Sporadically at first but more frequently throughout the weeks. Somewhere in between the second and fourth meet-up, August told my sister and Lucie we were hanging out, as friends, of course. She sold it as us bumping into each other a couple of times in the supermarket, during a jog, and on the Vesuvius-hill, and that we started talking, as friends, of course. They thought nothing of it because after all, friends can meet up.

As a friend, she's been telling me about the athletics team and her obsession with trying to perfect the recipes of her self-invented desserts. I can now call myself the proud critic of August's desserts. It's a lovely, and most of all, delicious job. Except for the part where she tries to convert me into a caramel-lover by secretly serving me desserts with caramel in them.

It's safe to say her attempts have been unsuccessful so far.

I've been listening to her horrible jokes that somehow always make me smile and she's been listening to me babble about soccer competitions she knows nothing about. And at the end of every get-together, not date, she recommends to me a movie she loves.

I watch every single one of them. I enjoy it but even if I wouldn't, I would watch the living hell out of them just to see the smile on her face when I share my opinion on them.

It's obvious. I'm an absolute sucker for her because, with every grin, every eye roll, and every playful punch she gives me when I tease her, I fall deeper into this bottomless hole called love. It's ridiculously scary, ridiculously dangerous but ridiculously exciting. And that's why I have this ridiculous idea to come clean.

"I don't want to be your friend." I blurt as she walks up to the railing of the lookout point.

Her hands grip the metal on the edge of the cliff, her head's hung low and she doesn't turn around.

It doesn't look good, but I can't back out now.

"Ari, please, look at me." Hesitantly she turns around as she tucks a strand of her wavy auburn hair behind her ear. Her eyes are filled with uncertainty and the left side of her lip is clamped between her teeth. Her face is pleading with me to stop but I don't want to pretend anymore.

"What I mean is that I want to be your friend, August. I do. I want to be the friend you call when you feel sad, the one you go to with the smallest of problems. I want to be the friend you think of when something funny happens and I want to be the friend you can shamelessly tell all your jokes to. But I also want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with because fucking hell, August, you've been making it pretty fucking hard for me not to with you. And I think I'm losing that battle, so fuck it. I want this and I want you to, just for a moment, forget everything. Just for a moment, think about what you want. Think about yourself."

In a split second, she fires back, "I am thinking about myself."

"Fine," I snap. "Then is this really what you want? Because if you tell me now it is, then that's fine by me. If you tell me now that being friends is all you want, then that's all we'll ever be. Just say the word; Colin, you've been imagining everything. Colin, you're the only one that's been feeling like an eight-year-old high on candy when I'm with you. The only one that can't stop thinking about how it'd feel to kiss you or hold your hand. So, Colin, I want to be friends and there isn't a single hair on my body that even thinks about being more. There isn't even a little part of me that is going crazy pretending to feel nothing. Just say it and we'll never talk about this again. But don't you dare lie to me or yourself."