First Light

28 in the rain

Sunday 5th of December 2021

Faye:

I'm in Gia's room helping her pack when it sort of slips out.

"Gia? Could I tell you something?"

She doesn't look up from folding one of her tops.

"I think... I like Marlo."

She looks at me wordlessly.

I elaborate for clarification. "As in I have feelings for him."

She smiles, but she doesn't even looked shocked at all, which confuses me.

"Hello? Did you hear what I just said."

"I heard you. It's about time you admitted it to yourself though, Faye, I was waiting," Gia continues before I can reply. "I could tell."

"You what?" I inhale sharply. "Do you think Marlo's noticed?"

At this, Gia laughs hard, which isn't helping. "Sweetie. He flirts with you all the time. The feelings are definitely mutual."

I roll my eyes. "Some people flirt meaninglessly. Maybe he's just one of those people."

She shakes her head. "There's no way. It's so obvious he likes you. He's liked you for ages, I bet."

Has he?

Gia continues. "The way he looks at you, Faye? There isn't a platonic explanation for that. He looks at you like you're the only woman to ever exist to him. It's like he doesn't care about anyone or anything else if you're there."

"Really?"

She laughs. "Yes, really. It's so obvious. Anyone that hasn't realised would have to be really stupid. Like, really stupid."

She's calling me stupid. "Thanks, Gia."

"I mean it with love, babe. But seriously, though, you can tell he's really into you just from how he acts when he's around you."

"Well still, even if that were true, we're just friends."

She shakes her head at this. " 'Just friends' don't look at each other the way that you two do, honey. You have chemistry."

"Yeah, but we're still just friends, though. There's been nothing that's happened between us that hasn't been platonic."

Gia scrunches her face slightly. "I know, but there will be. If that's something you want to happen?"

"Well, yeah, I do, but you know me, I'm just going to be overthinking his actions. What if that's just him being friendly? We can't really know for sure."

I can tell that Gia knows any type of disagreement from her side is not going to change my mind, so she just sighs, and smiles. "You guys will be together before Easter. I'm calling it first."

I laugh, rolling my eyes, but in my head, I'm saying there's no way that that is possible. No one will ever like you enough to want to make you their girlfriend.

His feelings will disappear once he knows what I'm really like, in my mind. What I mask from others to get them to like me. He won't want to stick around to deal with that when I don't even want to deal with it.

***

Friday 10th of December 2021 (the following week)

Marlo:

I text Faye without thinking, but she should be awake to reply. It's only 6.31pm.