Winning Skylinn

15

||Jonny's POV||

We were sitting on her couch, watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and I had never felt closer to her than I did now. It would be so easy to just tell her. Touch her hand, or maybe her knee. Say, "I've liked you since I was twelve years old."

I knew her favorite kids movie, how much she loved this one. Personally, I thought the animation sucked, but to be fair, it was pretty old.

I knew she liked her cocoa with extra marshmallows. She called it her 'pretend snow.' At the moment, she had a chocolate mustache and I wanted to wipe it off with the sleeve of my hoodie.

But I stayed put.

She had a boyfriend. And not only that, a boyfriend who was gone at war. She would hate me if I tried to ruin what they had. If anyone tried to ruin it, really.

I knew how much she loved Denver. And I wanted to protect her, to keep her safe. If loving her from afar was the only way to do that, then so be it. I couldn't stand it if she was mad at me. And I'd hate to be the one to break up their perfect-seeming relationship.

The problem was, Skylinn was my girl. I'd known her since kindergarten, when I moved in next door and she came to help. We'd shared Scooby Doo fruit snacks, and built a tree house in her backyard, and went to school together our whole lives. That had to count for something, right?

But no, Skylinn belonged to somebody else. She wasn't mine. And from the way things were going, she would probably end up with Denver. There was no room in her love life for me. Maybe there never was.

I'd kept my little crush on the down low for six years, practically my whole teenage life. Through eighth-grade formal, and four homecoming dances, two proms, and even a Sadie Hawkins, I'd kept my feelings for her a secret. We'd only went to 8th-grade formal and one homecoming together, though. And that was mostly because my mom made me ask her. I would've asked anyway, if I'd had the guts. I liked to think my mom was my secret wingman-or, wing-woman, in this case. But even she didn't know how I felt about Skylinn. No one did.

I stuffed my feelings for her way down in my chest, trying to forget about them. We were best friends and nothing had changed. But sometimes she made it really hard.

Like when she ruffled my hair and her nose wrinkled as she laughed.

Or when she rolled the windows down, riding shotgun with her feet up on the dash, singing totally off-key without a care in the world.

Like right now, when she sat just inches from me, her knee brushing against my leg, and her hair flowing down her back. Her eyes were so bright and she looked happy, and I wondered if she really was. Happy.

She didn't notice me staring at her, and I was glad for that. If she'd looked at me, I don't know if I could've held myself back from kissing her.

Like I said, it would be so easy. She was just inches away... But her heart was a million miles away, with someone else. And that was enough to keep me away.