A Poet's Secret

Chapter 15

Zora

It feels like the ass crack of dawn when I hear a knock on my bedroom door.

"Mom I'm sleeping" I  mutter before pulling my blanket over my head

The door creaks open "It's not your mom" I  hear Sierra's voice

"What are you doing here it's like 5" I  mutter sitting up on my bed

"I don't know, I  just wanted to hang out" she says sitting on my chair and messing around with stuff on my table

"At 5am?" I  say dumbfounded

"Girl, it's almost 1"

"What???" I exclaim, reaching for my phone to see that it was indeed almost one.

"What did you do last night?" she chuckles

"Oh my dad came home finally," I  say nonchalantly.

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

Last Night

"Zor, we need to tell you something," my mom said.

We were gathered on our family dining table and mom's voice was shaking and I almost knew what was going to come out of her mouth.

He came at around midnight with a smile on his face and gifts to make me forget his absence but they didn't work. Then, he and mom went to 'catch up' in her room and as I waited for them I could hear the screams of accusations between them.

And that's how we ended up here now.

Tears started streaming down my mothers face as she struggled to talk and he just sat there, staring at his clenched fists that lay on top of the table. Coward.

"You guys are breaking up," I say for my mom.

They both sat there quiet, staring at me with pity in their eyes and neither of them did anything to stop me from leaving.

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

I ended up calling Ezra and we sat in his backyard getting drunk off buzzballz that his brother got us since he was in town for the weekend.

"I should've known, you know?" I muttered. "Dad was barely home the whole summer and mom was sad almost all the time but I- I  just didn't want to believe it."

"Sometimes your brain knows the truth  but your heart doesn't want to believe it because living in ignorant bliss is way more comforting than accepting a truth that can break you."

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

"So what do you wanna do?" I  say walking over to my dresser

"Dave and busters?"

I smirk "Dave and Busters for sure"
"Ima go take a shower"

I get back in my room and I'm met with a familiar setting. I see Sierra standing over my bed. My memory box, well it's really a shoe box with a bunch of sentimental stuff, rests on my comforter wide open, and in sierras hands lies literally the root of all my fucking problems; the journal.

When Ezra came to check on me a few months ago he rearranged all the poems and out them back into the journal so it was sort of a folder book contraption and I  stuffed it in the box because he said they were good poems now I  know I  should have just burnt the damn thing and washed its ashes down my sink.

"Sierra? What are you doing?'' I ask wearily not knowing what to do, my whole world feels like it's crashing on top of me and it seems like everything is collapsing on top of me.

She turns around swiftly with disbelief in her eyes "You're in love with me?"

My brain is working at 2x speed and I grab the journal from her hands and stuff them back in the box, shoving the damn thing in my closet and shutting it.

"I  - i… I  don't know what to say" she whispers in disbelief. Her eyes look around my room frantically, as if it's somewhere she's never been. She looks at me as if I'm a stranger.

"Shit Zora this is weird," she says pleadingly running both of her hands through her hair and looking to the ceiling.

"Can we just pretend you didn't see that?" I say frantically.

All I can think about is how our friendship is gonna be over and how miserable I'll be. When you're used to something and you've held onto it for years, having it taken away from you is like losing a vital organ and the thought of me losing Sierra is like someone ripping a part of my heart away. Even though I never had her the way I wanted to, I never wanted to lose her.

"You mean pretend that I didn't just find out that you're totally and irrevocably in love with me?"

I breathe sheepishly "Yes"

"No!"
"Zora this… this is so weird, I  don't know how to react"

"Then don't! Don't do anything! Just forget it! Please I- I  can't lose you as a friend" I  cry approaching her

"But you don't want me as a friend, you want me as a lover" she mutters backing away

"I  - I don't know what I want!" I  yell in frustration why won't she just let it go!?
"I don't want to be your friend because I- I'm in love with you but I  don't want to be your lover because that would risk the loss of what we have as friends and I  don't think I  could ever handle losing you"

She goes quiet and all I  hear is the loud beating of my heart and my jagged breath
"Since when" she whispers
"Since when have you felt this way?" she says more clearly

"I  - since 6th grade I  think"

She scoffs "five years?"

"Please Sierra let's just forget this, I  don't want our friendship to be over" I  plead

"I think our friendship is already over Zora," she says with fear in her eyes.

"Sierra I  love you but I love you enough to want you to be happy even though its without me" tears fall out my eyes involuntarily

"..."
"Zora, I do love you but… as a friend," she breathes with pain gracing her features, as if it's hurting her knowing this is hurting me.
"Maybe if somehow you said something earlier, this could've happened" she gestures between us
"But you have to understand that the fact that you've felt this way for so long, in secret, and that you've seen me with so many other people sort of freaks me out and I- I  really don't know what this means for us."

"It can mean whatever you want it to mean, whatever makes you happy" I  give her a pained smile

"What about what makes you happy?" she asks wearily

I laugh but it just comes out as a wet sound "you make me happy but I  know I'll never be able to make you feel the same way you make me feel"
"And I know this is stupid to think a teenager can feel such a magnitude of emotion but feelings are things that you can't control. If I could control my feelings none of this would've happened."

"I  - I just, I can't do this. Sorry"