the only exception // mc

2

He came into the bar I worked in for two weeks straight after that, by himself, and just sat and talked to me. Sometimes, he would sit and have a few beers. Other times, he'd order soda. I'd always wanted to ask, but i never allowed myself.

Exactly two weeks after the first night he'd come into the bar, he brought up his date proposal again.

"Rosalie," he'd started. "let me take you out. We can do anything you want. It doesn't even have to be a date, if you don't want it to be. We can hang out... as friends." I'd giggled as I watched him cringe at the term.

"As friends?" I'd asked cautiously. I had looked him dead in the eye, acting as if I'd be able to tell if he was bluffing.

Michael had had a stellar pokerface from day one.

"I will gladly let you put me in the friendzone." He conceded. I laughed again; Michael was good at making me laugh.

"You know, Michael, there are many women out there that would say your use of the term 'friendzone' would set feminism back like, ten years." I teased. Michael grinned back at me.

"Are you one of those women?" He asked playfully, resting his head in his hands.

"Fuck no. So, how do you feel about letting me kick your ass at a few rounds of Call of Duty tomorrow?" I had figured that sitting in my apartment playing video games would be harmless. We would be in my ballpark, I could call the shots. If I felt like things weren't going the way they were supposed to, I'd have the ability to make him leave. I wrote my address on a piece of receipt paper and told him to be there by two o'clock.

Michael just slipped off of his bar stool and slid a beanie over his green hair.

"Heed my warning, Rosalie. I am fucking stellar at Call of Duty. Be prepared for the utmost of battles." Then he nodded his head at me and left the bar.

As I cleaned up that night, I couldn't fight the growing excitement in my stomach. I was excited to see him tomorrow. I tried to talk myself out of the feeling, I tried to tone it down, but I couldn't. Every time I thought of him, of seeing him tomorrow, I grinned like an idiot. I had never been this girl before. I was the girl who left when the guy she had just slept with fell asleep. I gave out fake numbers and sometimes even fake names.

I did not let pretty boys with sparkling eyes come over to my place to hang out. I did not get excited over the idea of seeing someone again.

I was Rosalie Greene. I was cool, calm, and collected. That was, until it came to Michael Clifford.

Much to my dismay, I woke up earlier than I ever did after working a shift at the bar and I got ready to see that damned boy. I cleaned my apartment from top to bottom, I showered and I shaved. I even did my hair and makeup, though I did my best to make it come across as casual. I couldn't let him see how I was being. I had made sure to show him that I was cold and closed off, only showing him otherwise in especially weak moments. My extending of the invitation had been my weakest moment by far, and I didn't plan to let myself slip anymore. This was going to be completely platonic and nothing else. It couldn't lead to anything else; love was a made up concept, as much of a fairytale as Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. I continued to tell myself that. It was what I had grown up believing and honestly, I didn't want to believe anything else. I didn't want to end up left behind and broken like my father had. I refused to be that person. I refused to be weak.

It was two o'clock on the dot when Michael rang to get buzzed in and I ignored the feeling in my stomach. I ignored the wave of nausea that came with those unwanted butterflies and I ignored the rapid beating of my heart against my ribcage. I let him in despite all of the warning signs my body was giving me. I had never experienced any of these feelings before. I had only read books that described this.

Michael walked through my front door without knocking and placed a bag of take out on my kitchen table, smiling sweetly at me. He looked the way he did every night at the bar; effortlessly stunning.

"Good afternoon, Rosalie. you look especially beautiful today." He smirked at the end of his sentence, as if he could sense that I had put extra effort into my appearance today. I forced myself to roll my eyes.

"Don't say that. We're just hanging out as friends." I scolded. I didn't want him to compliment me. I didn't want any reason to develop feelings for this boy. I hadn't realized that it was already too late, that he had sunk his teeth into me.

"I compliment my friends all the time! A day doesn't pass where I don't tell Calum he's beautiful." He joked, pulling a chair out for me to sit on. I didn't have to force myself to roll my eyes at his chivalrous tendencies. I purposely didn't say thank you.

"What did you bring to eat?" I asked. I hadn't eaten this morning, I had been too busy cleaning. Plus, the butterflies that had made its home in my stomach seemed to have built some sort of rollercoaster. I could feel them doing constant loop de loops and that made eating hard.

Michael's cheeks flushed slightly, so slightly that I wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't been staring at him.

"Well, you told me once that you love Chinese food, so I thought that would be a good idea." He explained, pulling the different containers out of the bag. He'd managed to get all of my favourites; ginger beef, chicken fried rice, egg rolls, and deep fried prawns. I could feel my mouth watering just staring at the food.

I thanked him quietly and scooted my chair away from the table to grab plates and utensils. I had to make sure that he knew that this was platonic, that this had to be platonic. I didn't date. I didn't want to date, and surely I couldn't sleep with him. That's how all of those awful romantic comedies went; friends decided to sleep together and fell in love. The idea of it made me sick. I wouldn't fall in love. Michael and I would be friends and there would be nothing more to it.

I sat back down across from him and handed him a fork, chuckling at him playing with the chopsticks that were in the takeout bag.

"It's nice to see you when you're not standing behind a bar, taking orders from douche bags." He told me as he scooped some of the food onto his plate.

"Yeah." I smiled weakly. "Listen, Michael. You need to realize that this... this is always going to be just friends." I tried to make eye contact with him but I was afraid that would throw the whole thing off, that my words would falter and he wouldn't take me seriously. I needed him to know that no matter what happened, this would never end with us being anything more than friends. And so I looked away.

At the time I really, truly believed that we never would be.

"I know Rosalie. You've said that. 'Love is a facade' and all that, remember? We're just friends. I'm totally cool with that."

I looked at him at this point, and he seemed genuine. I thought that I could read him like a book. I believed that the look in his eyes was honesty and that he had no intentions of ever trying to become more than my friend.

I was wrong.