The Truth About Friendships

20. Developed Feelings Pt. 2

Afterward, he offered to buy ice cream for both of us at the convenience store next to his family-owned restaurant.

"Thank you." I smile, holding a slushy in my hand.

"Of course, but don't let this fool you. I'm only doing this for today, of course." He jokes. I roll my eyes. He bought himself a big box of brownies and a sprite.

"Thanks again," I say once we start to head out of the store. Before we head out to walk again, he opens the box of his brownies and takes out two packs.

"Here." I heard Ren's voice say. I looked up and saw that he was holding his hand out to me, offering the second brownie pack to me.

"Oh. It's okay, I'm fine." I smile. He's been too nice already, buying this slushie for me and all.

"Kimora, just take the damn treat." He grabbed my hand, opened it, and planted the pack in my hand.

"Thank you." I smile.

"Don't thank me. Just walk back to campus with me." He chuckles.

I didn't say anything else, and in silence, I began to walk with him. I tried to shove down the smile that kept wanting to surface. This whole time, my stomach was doing somersaults.

"I'm... glad you came to talk to me tonight." He finally spoke up after this minute of silence.

"I'm glad I did too." I smile.

"When you yelled at me, the only thing I could think was, this is it. I might never get to talk to her again." He says, but I want to believe he's joking.

"Liar." I snorted.

"It's true. I value our friendship as much as you do. And..." He paused.

"Yes?" I looked at him.

"It scared me."

"Why'd it scare you?" I asked.

"Because it would kill me if we ever stopped talking." He looks at me and there's not a hint of humor on his face.

"I'm sorry." I apologize again this time.

"Ah, it's okay. You were pretty upset, so I understand." He sighed.

"I wasn't... upset. It just surprised me. I'm not used to talking about my personal life with people." I explain.

"I see. Well, it's okay if you didn't want to talk to me. You're not obligated to tell me anything." He shrugged.

"No. I do want to talk to you. You're a good friend, and I realize that you happen to be a pretty good listener too." I fidgeted around.

"Can I ask you something?" He says and that scares me. The last time he asked that was when we were making out in the front seat of his car.

"Sure," I say, anxious to know what he had to ask.

"If it weren't for Danny, do you... think we'd still be friends?" He stopped in his tracks and stood in front of me so that I could look at him.

What a surprising question.

Would we still be friends?

No. I don't think we would.

If it weren't for Danny, I would be sucked into Ren's charms.

"I- I mean.." I stutter.

Just then, I felt a droplet on my face. I looked up at the sky and felt another droplet next to my eye. Shit. It was going to rain.

"You feel that too?" I ask while staring at the blank sky.

"Yeah. It's gonna rain." He looks up as well. Right after he said that we felt a shower come down. I squealed at the cold, wet feeling on my clothes. This is not what I had expected. We didn't bring an umbrella, so we just had to trust in our running skills.