faded.

TWENTY

ONIKA

I was hanging out with Solana for the first time in a while, probably not since we had a conversation about our friendship.

I was spending most of my free time with Bey now so I didn't really have time to. She reached out to me first asking if I wanted to go get pho. I appreciated not having to always be the one to make the first move in our friendship.

Bey had me so used to being a passenger princess that I asked Solana for pick me up because I didn't feel like driving.

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, especially the girl talk. I needed our outing, I missed her and our friendship.

The only topic I was avoiding was Bey. If she was the reason for the strain in our friendship, I would just stop mentioning her and keep the two relationships separate.

Bey started texting me and I couldn't hide my smile when texting her back. Solana must've noticed because she started laughing. "Nobody could have you smiling ear to ear like this except for Bey."

I laughed a little myself and turned my phone off. "Yeah, sorry, she was just asking me what I was doing."

"So you guys are still... you know? I thought you were ending that." She wasn't being judgemental, the last time we spoke about Bey I felt very differently about her.

I started smiling just thinking about everything."Yeah, but it's so different than how it was before." It hadn't been that long but a lot changed.

"Really? How?"

"Well, she stopped taking pills. I think that's the main thing. I haven't really mentioned her because I don't want to make you feel weird but it's been really good."

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "Are you serious?"

I understood her shock, none of the people around her thought she could ever stop. I smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'm really proud of her. It's been a couple weeks now but as far as I know, she's only been smoking weed."

"...And you believe her? Sorry, I don't mean to say it like that but it's Bey."

"Well, yeah." I knew what she meant. "I haven't seen her, and that's all I can go off of. She's been way more mentally present and she hasn't been disappearing for days."

"Wow." She was clearly at a loss for words. "That's wild."

"Yeah, it's been really good for us." I took a second to contemplate if I really wanted to say what I was about to say. "I think I love her."

Solanas eyes widened again. "Oh?"

"I don't know if I'm just delusional because of other factors but I really do. I don't even care about all the bad stuff because I feel like I see her past that."

"Other factors like what? Sex?"

I looked away and smiled. "Well, not exactly. But pretty close."

"Well, I definitely wasn't expecting you to be doing that."

"I don't know, I feel comfortable with her." I laughed, "And she's pretty good at it."

Solana looked at me in a 'don't I know it' kind of way and then laughed. "Well."

I almost forgot. I leaned forward. "I have a question. You don't have to answer but I'm a little curious."

She raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"

"Did you ever like...you know?" I didn't want to say it but I hoped she would understand by my suggestive look.

She started laughing. "Yeah. I get down but that doesn't mean you have to. She's not the type of person who needs that. But is that something you want to do?"