Imperfect | est. 2015

30. The Weight

"If I could tell you, I would." Addison spoke up after minutes of silence.

I just watched the empty space in the hallway.

Addison speaks up again, "Are you gonna say anything?"

And when I turned around, she was standing right behind me with a concerned look on her face.
"I don't know what to say." I said, noticing how hard it was to talk.

She sits down on the edge of my bed and kept her eyes on me, "There isn't anything on your mind? After all that?"

"Well there is, but--"

"What's going on between you two?"

"I don't know... it just..." I stuttered. I couldn't even think clearly.

Then she kept putting words in my mouth, "Do you have feelings for him?"

And after that, I just went completely silent.
I didn't know.
I didn't even know what to think. Or even remember the details of what was going through my mind when it happened.

I just stared at the wall and didn't look at her.

She repeated the question, "Do you?"

And then it was almost as if I was thinking too much.

I could not, in any way, ever imagine having feelings for my best friend.
He was practically my family, it wasn't right.

Every memory I could reach back to as a child, he was in it.

"Listen to me," I followed my mother around the kitchen while she carried her coffee and a newspaper, "It's not like that, Mom."
She eyeballed me over the tops of her glasses, "You say that now, but when you're older, things could be different."
I laughed, being as immature as I could be at thirteen years old, "That's stupid. It's not like that, it never will be like that."
"Watch me be right." She said, wisely and walks out of the kitchen, scanning the front page of the papers.
"You won't be. He's my best friend. He's my only friend, actually. How could I ever have feelings for my only friend?"

"That's just how it always happens," she smirks, "haven't you seen all those horrible love movies?"
I chuckled again and followed her with a rant in my voice, "Yes, but I'm serious. Me and him are complete opposites."
"And that's why it's perfect." She argues.
"Mom, he's like my brother."
"That's what they all say."

And at that point I just threw a pillow at her feet, "You don't understand," I said, still giggling, "if I ever liked him, we could never be friends again."

"That doesn't always happen."

"How do you know?" I said, sitting myself in one of the high chairs by the counter top.

"You can chose to still be friends. If your friendship gets destroyed by something like that, that's up to you guys."

I shook my head, "Well, it's not that easy."

There was a pause while she lifted her glasses to the top of her head. She picks up everything she needed from the edge of the countertop and turns away on her heels, "Just take my word for it. You'll see what I mean."

I never saw it. But that entire conversation was edged into my brain every time a similar topic came up.
And Addison sat there with blank eyes while she waited for my answer.

But I didn't have one.

"Skylar." She whispered. I knew she wanted an answer.
I knew she expected me to have a final decision to a question I haven't even completely asked myself yet.
But there just nothing.

"Addison, look," I said, suddenly feeling in the strangest mood I've ever been in, "I am tired."

She just stared at me blankly, knowing there was more to what I needed to say.

I was almost laughing, but I couldn't understand why, "Not only did I have to go through all my biggest fears in one summer... and not only did I discover who the hell was responsible for the death of my family... I might've just destroyed the relationship with my best friend."

I sounded almost intimidating, and with all the focus she had on what I was saying, I went on with it, "I spent the last two years of my life thinking that I had nothing. I lost both my parents. I lost my little brother. I'm losing the family that I have left. And Connor...," my voice trailed off a little, and everything I said after that, made it sound like I was trying my hardest not to cry, "Connor was one of the last things I had left... and even when I was a kid, I promised that I would never let something like this happen because if I lost him... I couldn't--.." I cut myself off and lowered my head. I set my hands over my face just because I couldn't tell if I was going to burst into tears or what was even going through my head.

"You aren't going to lose him, Skylar."

"How do you know?"

She sighs and I couldn't see what she was doing because I hid my face.

"Because he's your best friend..." She said.

In all honesty, in that situation, I don't know if him being my best friend would be one of the things that made him come back. It would be the issue.

And when there was a pause between then and what she would say next, I knew what she was going to ask, "You have to have the slightest ide--"

And I interrupted her, "I don't, Addison."

I took my hands off my face and stared her in the eye, "Let's just drop it for tonight."

"Are you never going to answer my question?"

And as I pulled a stack of blankets and pillows out from my half-opened closet, I looked back at her over my shoulder, "I don't know yet."

"So not once in all the years you've known him, have you thought about how you feel about him?"

I didn't respond. I just unfolded the blankets over onto the carpet and avoided looking at her.

Until I stopped myself from what I was doing, "Of coarse, I have," I tell her, "but that doesn't matter."

"Yes it does."

"It really doesn't."

"Well, would you answer my question differently if he asked you?"

And I just stared at the ground.
I'd been packing the pillow around in my hand then set it on top of the bed I'd just made.
And out of all the questions she asked me that night, that was the one that was the most impossible to answer.

I stood.

I made my way to the bed she was sitting on, and crawled under the blankets.
Before she's even stood to get into her own bed, I reached over my nightstand and shut the light off.
And once the lamp clicked and the room was dark, I just muttered under my breath and lied down on my side, "Goodnight, Addison."