I Don't Mind

Chapter 18

Adrian's POV

5 days later...

"Julian, I'm sorry, but I don't have feelings for you." 

I get no answer. 

"Fuck, that was terrible," I tell my reflection in the mirror. 

I'm just trying to practice what I'm gonna say to Julian when I finally decide to tell him that I don't like him the way he likes me. I'm probably gonna tell him today, just get it done with and be able to move on. 

"Julian, I think you're a great guy, but I feel like preserving our friendship would be better than actually being in a relationship." 

"Adrian? You good? It's 5 AM, bro," Devin says through our bathroom door. 

"Yeah, I'm good, sorry," I say, facing the mirror again and lowering my voice back to a whisper. "Julian, I really like you, but I really like you as a friend. And I think that's as far as our relationship should go." 

I don't know what to do and I'm stressing out right now. I have to tell him at some point, and Derek has been trying to help me all week but I'm not really good at this kind of stuff. It's not as big as a breakup, but I've never had to do something like this. I've never had to tell someone that there's no chance for them with me. 

I just feel bad and I don't want to make Julian sad because he's a really fun guy. I still want to spend time with him but I just think that we shouldn't date, and I don't want to get Julian's hopes up just for them to fall back down later, farther down the road. It still terrifies me that Kai and Jax said he's sensitive to these kinds of things. That's gonna be really difficult. I have to tread super lightly. 

"Julian, I think you're an amazing person that I'm happy to call my friend, but I don't think our relationship should go anywhere further than that. I'm sorry," I say to myself in the mirror. 

I might just have to play it by ear when I see him later. I already told him I wanted to talk to him tonight after practice. We had the first week of classes this week, I like all my classes so far. I'm in a few with Derek, which is nice. 

However, it is pretty clear that I have feelings for him again. He's being so fucking sweet to me ever since he saw me in the locker room. He doesn't say anything mean to me, he's just being so sweet. I have feelings for him again, and that's not even a question. I'm not mad about it, I think I have feelings for him for the right reasons. He makes me feel safe. 

Anyways, I am gonna go back to sleep because it is 5:00 AM and I need sleep before class starts. My teachers are cool or whatever and my classes are good but the only thing I care about is the fact that for the first time, I feel like all of Derek's attention is on me. That didn't happen at all in high school, and yeah, he was probably thinking about me a lot after I walked in on him, but probably not fondly. 

But now he's hanging out with me, smiling at me with his beautiful dimples, and little does he know that I'm quickly falling for him again. 

13 hours later... (A/N: sorry for the specific time jumps I just feel like it would be weird for the time jumps to be random)

I told Julian to meet me at the tables behind our dorm building so we could 'talk.' I hope his expectations for this aren't high. I didn't specify what I wanted to talk about, so I hope he doesn't think this is me confessing my feelings to him. 

I'm waiting for him there right now, and I'm stressing the fuck out of it. I talked to Derek before coming over here and he told me to just stay calm and don't stress about it too hard, but that's impossible in this circumstance.