𝘽𝙚𝙩𝙬𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙈𝙚 || dream x oc

12

-- 𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗽𝗼𝘃 --

Lunch went by pretty quickly. The boys bickered for while over the restaurant, and they finally decided on Chipotle. I didn't care where we were eating in the slightest, I was hungry enough to eat pretty much anything at this point, so I didn't really contribute to the conversation much. After we sat down, Nick asked me about Lyla and I showed him some photos. He turned a little pink and managed to mumble something about how cute she was. I knew he was into her for real because he certainly didn't blush when he was 'flirting' with me.

The ride home is when the real problems started. I had been appointed aux cord duties, so I hit shuffle on my liked songs, imagining that we'd be talking over it anyway. As soon as The Kooks came on I knew I was fucked. 'Junk of the Heart' had been one of my favorite songs during the period of time that I was in love with Clay. Of course, he never had a clue that the song he and I had danced to at 3 a.m. on countless nights was one I had only ever been able to think about him during. I'd avoided this song like the plague for years at this point, and it was like it had come back to haunt me. At a red light, he turned to me and sang, something entirely innocent but it put me right back into that old headspace. I had to force myself to sing along, but I felt like I was going to throw up.

I guess it wasn't much of a surprise, I'd been thinking a lot about the state of our relationship lately. Even that little incident in the car just a day prior gave me a glimpse of those feelings all over again. It was bound to happen -- me falling in love with him again. I came to expect it at this point, but it wasn't making this any easier. I could barely even look at him as he sang because I was scared I'd start fucking crying or something in front of everyone. The pit in my stomach had officially returned.

I tried to pinpoint exactly when it happened but came to the realization that I'd probably been in love with him for far longer than I wanted to admit. I wished I wasn't having this realization in the car right now either. I thought about pretending to be sick or something but I knew it wouldn't work. I knew I just had to sit there in the car with my nauseating and absolutely terrifying realization that I was in love with my best friend. I also knew he didn't think about me in that way. I'd have to shake it off just like I did when I was 14. Apparently, I'd done a pretty decent job at shaking off those feelings if I managed to last this long without another "episode". 

Even back then I thought he was way out of my league, and that was even more true now. He had literally millions of girls that would do anything to be with him, why would he want me? Why would he want the girl he'd known his whole life when he had seemingly endless options? I was about as far away from his previous girlfriends as possible -- both in terms of looks and personality. There was literally nothing to indicate that there was even the slightest possibility that he felt the same way I did back then or right now.

The first step to stopping this development in its tracks was keeping as much physical distance as I could without tipping him off. As soon as we got home we split up to take naps, and I made an effort not to let Clay cuddle with me. I kept to my side of the bed and gently shrugged him off when he tried to wrap an arm around me. It sucked having to do this, especially when I wanted it so badly, but that was precisely why I had to prevent it. I was just glad he was too knocked out to notice that I was actively avoiding coming into physical contact with him. I also knew I would not be able to keep this up. He'd notice if I was less touchy with him than usual, and I also didn't want to make him think he had done something wrong or something that made me uncomfortable -- especially after that conversation we had a few days before the guys arrived.

We woke up around 6:30 and ordered takeout. As we ate we joked around a little bit more about some of my Skype interactions with Nick when we were kids, and George enlightened me about all of the embarrassing stories Clay had told them about me. He even mentioned some 'anonymous' stories Clay had told on streams, and I was able to confirm that they were all about me. They also told me more about how their first streams together and how they became close. Clay had even told the story about how he'd gotten kicked off the basketball team during our senior year. He had gotten in trouble for fighting someone essentially on my behalf. I was amazed at how well he had managed to obscure details of the story and fully anonymize it.