We're Just Friends (Frank Iero)

11.

I woke up feeling amazing. Insanely amazing. My heart was racing, my palms were sweating and I had this weird tingly feeling all over my body. I fell asleep smiling and I woke up smiling and I'm pretty sure that I spent the entire night smiling while I slept. Yesterday, Poppy had kissed me. She told me we've never been just friends. This means that she's always felt what I've felt.

The chemistry, the flirting, the uncontrollable urge to kiss her every time I look at her- she felt it too. I knew she felt it; she was trembling as she kissed me just as much as I was. I literally had no idea what was in store for us next; would we kiss today when I see her? Are we an item? 

Does she love me?

I jumped out of bed and headed straight for the window, ripping open my curtains to embrace the sunlight of a new incredible day. I looked up at Poppy's window and saw that her curtains were closed but her desk lamp was on, meaning that she was reading. She liked to block out the sunlight and read beside her lamp, she always had. I told her it was crazy to do that when the sun was shining but she was a weird kid. But I still loved her.

I threw on some clothes and headed over to her house, climbing the drainpipe on the brick wall until I was pressed against her window. I knocked excitedly and waited a few moments for her to open the window and allow me to tumble into her room.

"Good morning soldier," I beamed, before I looked around her room and felt the happiness get sucked out of me. Everything she owned was in boxes- her room was practically bare. The only thing remaining was the duvet on her bed, her lamp and a book on her desk. 

"I'm leaving today Frankie," she said. She wasn't crying but it was obvious by the red and swollen nature of her eyes that she had been crying continously for a long time. "I didn't want to tell you when I was leaving because I didn't want you to anticipate it, and I didn't want us to have a really sad 'last night' together- I wanted it to be natural."

"W-we didn't even hang out last night," I said, my voice trembling. "Y-you said you had homework."

"When it came down to it I couldn't bear it, knowing that it was my last night with you," she said, finally giving in to the temptation of crying and letting tears escape down her gorgeous rosy cheeks. "I watched you from the window for a while and I could see how happy you were; I don't know if it was because of the kiss but-"

"You will never understand how happy that kiss made me," I interrupted her. "You made me feel like the most important, amazing, happiest guy in the world last night. I could barely sleep, I couldn't sit still- Poppy I have wanted to kiss you for a decade. A fucking decade. I should have kissed you years ago when I had all this time with you but I was a coward; I didn't want to ruin our friendship and I was convinced you didn't have feelings for me!"

"To be honest I didn't," she said, taking my hands and intertwining her fingers with mine. "Every time we used to pretend to kiss I used to get this weird nervous feeling in my stomach, but it always disappeared when you pulled away and made jokes about it. Every time we slept in the same bed and cuddled up together, I didn't sleep because I was so nervous; but I never understood why. When you started dating Grace I couldn't bear it and I realized that I was jealous, not just because she wasn't good for you but because nobody was good enough for you. I've always loved you, I just never realized it. If I had known I'd have done something about it a long time ago Frankie."

"You can't leave Poppy," I begged. "You can't. I don't know what I'd do without you around here. You're the only friend I have who I know is a true friend, you're the only one I can trust. The fact that I'm in love with you doesn't even come close to the problem of you being my best friend and leaving me here."

"I have to," she said through a shaking voice. "When I'm 18, I'll come right back to New Jersey. We can go to college together, we can live next door like we used to but I don't have any say in this Frankie."

I felt a huge wave of emotion and intensity crash over me and I grabbed her almost violently by the shoulders and pulled her in close, my lips crashing against hers. I held her as tightly as I possibly could and poured every ounce of emotion in my body into that one kiss, desperate for her to know just how much I loved her.

"You're the only one," she whispered as our lips broke apart by barely a millimetre. "I won't replace you."

I couldn't bear to be in the room anymore, watching Poppy pack her life away into boxes before we would have to perform an inevitable, heartbreaking goodbye to one another. I turned and headed for the window and began to climb out.

"Frankie," Poppy mumbled through tears, making her voice practically inaudible.

"Pops?" I said, turning back and grinning weakly at her, causing her to crack a tiny smile. I realised that she had nothing to say, she just wanted to look at me. I looked back, admiring her wide and beautiful eyes for a moment more before I climbed out of the window and down the drainpipe, running back to my room so that I could be alone.

**

Several hours later, I began to regret leaving Poppy's room so hastily just because I was too cowardly to say goodbye to her properly. I snapped out of my mood and quickly ran back over to hers, climbing the drainpipe and knocking on the window with one hand as I used the other to hold onto the drainpipe. After a few moments of silence, I looked into the window with confusion. Then I realized, I was too late. I stared into an empty room; a room I had been in almost every day for the past decade. It was once full of memories but now it was just blank walls with nothing inside but a bed frame and...something in the corner. I lifted up the window and thanked my lucky stars that she had left it unlocked. I climbed inside and looked around, my heart feeling as if it were growing heavier and heavier. I walked over to the corner and noticed that Poppy had left her childhood teddy in the room. It was strange for her to forget something so sentimental, but somehow she had done. It was a tiny red puppy with a letter P stitched onto the back. It smelt of Poppy.

I put the teddy in my pocket and turned to leave the room for the final time, knowing I would never see my girl in here again.