The Arrangement

Chapter Four

I'm not a naïve person, perhaps that's why I wasn't totally shocked when both Sophie and Imogen revealed that they had kept their buddying romances with our friends to themselves. As much as I always wish I had known all of the disgustingly cute details of how they came together, what the first kiss was like, in real time, I knew there was pressure.

However, knowing there was pressure and then experiencing that very pressure is two different things, from the outside looking in it feels like it's all about not rocking the friendship boat. Not just for yourself but for everyone around you, we're a tight knit group and thinking that your decision might be the thing that unravels it all, well fuck that.

I like being able to get a reasonably smooth nights rest at night, one that isn't plagued by impending exams and the graphicness of cases I have no desire to learn about. Those nights, that are so wildly annoying are thankfully few and far between, a miracle for someone who thinks as much as I do, the one thing I can count on though?

Is that alcohol is never a factor into sleepless nights, I would never use it to self-medicate but even if I had the busiest day the next morning. Coming home from a party drunk, or even slightly buzzed meant I would lay down and remain motionless until the next morning.

Granted it will inevitably feel like my bladder is on the edge of exploding when I do wake up, but a good night's rest is worth the threat of phantom pain.

The kicker, the point I guess, is that the sweet addition of alcohol in my blood did not, for even a second, help quiet my head and succeed in getting a good night's sleep, last night. In fact, I think the left-over inebriation worked against me because the only thing I was able to think about was how good it felt to have Hugo up against me.

One look in coffee eyes and I could have melted into a puddle for him, a reaction I would have called impossible before he kissed me. Now the world is spinning, and everything I thought I knew about our friendship is being called into question.

I've never been one forthcoming with my emotions, I haven't had luck in the department of men for something more than casual sex. The one's that do want to be exclusive and serious always have downsides and perceptions of me that I don't have the energy to fight with.

I could get on board with a boyfriend if it was the right person, the end of college isn't the most reasonable time to get into that. The thought of changing my plan for getting out of here shouldn't ever be dependent on a man, maybe that's where the frustration with everyone I've dated comes from.

This idea that nothing is more important than finding the person you love and following them to the ends of the earth, as you'd expect it's a whole lot of women being expected to follow their partners. You can blab about how that's an outdated and not accurate recounting, but I have more than a handful of women who have all experienced the same thing.

I think that's what has me spinning, could Hugo and I just apologise and pretend that what happened last night didn't? Or fall into the easy routine of casual, best-friends with benefits that always end with relationship or broken bonds that'll never come back. Maybe some friends could just stop, and I love Hugo with all my heart, but I don't see us reconciling after that.

So, after many hours of deliberating it feels like I have shoved the fate of our friendship into a box that he has had no say in, and locked it there. I'd love, love, to have the chance to feel what he could do to my body, and I know it would be even more life-changing than our first kiss. I know that forgetting it ever happened is the only way that we can get out of this without killing our friendship in the process.

These people that I surround myself are the core of who I am, the ones that keep me stationary when school and life takes you on a ride you don't pay for. The thought of doing something that might break one of them off from us feels like cutting of a limb, there's no space for losing anyone and least of all Hugo.