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Iced coffee in one hand, Josie ran her fingers through the display of pastel sweaters as she spoke.
"So yeah, you know how they say you'll get flashbacks of your whole life when you're about to die? Meanwhile, all I could think about was Mark," Josie took a sip of her drink. "That was really weird. One hard hit to the face and out of nowhere, I found him hot."
"How does that even happen?" Lia, her best friend, asked her with a clearly confused expression. The two of them were nearly as inseparable as Josie and Mark, having been close since high school and even enrolled into the same major for college. As usual, the girls were spending a day full of cancelled classes by window shopping and having street snacks.
"Physics, I guess. I mean, the velocity of the ball when it hit the hoop or whatever—"
"Not that, babe," Lia rolled her eyes. "I meant how does it take an almost concussion for someone to realize they have feelings for their best friend?"
Josie snorted as they moved to the next aisle. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about how you and Mark are the embodiment of the friends-to-lovers trope, but you've never noticed," Lia stated.
"What? That makes no sense," Josie said. "If anything, we're the living proof that a guy and a girl can be just friends."
Lia shook her head. "Not you two."
"Oh, this is cute," Josie hummed, touching an adorable pink pleated miniskirt only to wheeze at the numbers printed on the price tag.
"You know I love Mark with all my heart, but I just don't see him in that way."
"Are you sure?"
"One hundred percent."
Okay, maybe not one hundred percent.
Josie's conversation with Lia lingered for much longer than she would like. As she was working on her data analysis assignment, she couldn't help wondering if there was at least some truth to what Lia had talked about. Her eyes slowly moved away from her laptop screen to the printed pictures clipped on the strings hanging on her wall. The uppermost string was pictures with her family, from special occassions to vacations to the time Johnny first developed a love for photography. The second string was pictures with her girlfriends from school and college, a lot of funny and wild shots that reminded her of a lot of memorable nights. The lowest string, the one nearest to her eye level whenever she sat down at her study table, was all pictures with Mark: from having their arms around each other in middle school, to each other's high school graduation, to the most recent Christmas they had spent together.
Looking at the photos, Josie realized that she had spent almost half of her life with the older boy, yet not once had she ever considered him as more than a friend. She was way too familiar with people thinking they'd end up together or the constant push of support from their families, but she had never considered it seriously. She did have the thought that she'd marry Mark in a heartbeat since he was the person who knew her best, except normally whenever she imagined herself walking down the aisle towards him, she'd burst out laughing.
Now, however, just by thinking about him, his smile, and his arms that made her feel safe caused a blush to rise to her cheeks. Uh oh.
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"You're in denial," the text from Lia read out.
Josie scoffed as she stuffed her phone into her pocket and opened the car door, sliding into the driver's seat while mumbling about how she was definitely not in denial. She was certain that getting hit with a basketball messed her head up and that was the reason she was starting to get a little Willy Wonky in front of Mark.
Speaking of whom, the boy naturally got into her passenger seat, smiling at her with a soft "Hello". It was Friday, which also meant carpooling day since they had classes that started about the same time. It was routine to them, so Josie couldn't understand why she felt like her insides were going crazy at the sight of Mark.
He looked the same to her as he always did almost every single day for the past ten years, but today, her mouth went dry upon seeing him with his hair up and dressed in a fitted black shirt. Mark noticed the staring, raising an eyebrow at her and the gesture made her heart race so fast that Josie thought she was going into cardiac arrest.
"Dude, you okay? Is there something on my face again?"
Josie cleared her throat, shaking her head furiously. "Y-yeah, nope! You just look...different."
Mark grinned. "You noticed that I got new glasses?"
"That's totally it!" Josie forced a chuckle and quickly drove off so she wouldn't have to look at Mark any longer.
Once they were pulled into Josie's usual parking spot, she forced herself to be as calm and collected as possible. This is Mark Lee, the little voice in her head reminded her, you are not attracted to Mark Lee. He's your best friend, remember?
"See you later, Jo," Mark opened the car door and before he climbed out, out of habit, he lightly pinched her nose. It was something that he had done to her for years, nothing new at all, but it was the first time ever that his touch lingered and sent feelings like electricity throughout her whole body.
As much as she wanted to play dumb, she knew what was happening to her. It was the absolutely last thing she'd ever want to happen to her.
Once Mark was out of sight, Josie whipped her phone out and typed out a text to Lia while chewing on her bottom lip.
Shit. I think I do have a crush on him.
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