His Mistakes

Part 8

I'm actually going to tell him...There's no turning back now. 

I looked across the table at Lance then back at Pidge and Hunk. They nodded encouragingly. All I could do was pretend that they weren't watching.

 "Hey Lance?" I began, a bit more confident than I actually felt. At first he didn't look up. His eyes were still glued to his phone when he finally responded. 

 " Yeah? " 

I hesitated before looking over at the two again.

 "I need to talk to you." I continued to shoot a gaze over at Pidge as a sign that I didn't want them in the room while this happened. 

Lance finally pulled his eyes away from his screen, eyebrow upturned.

 "That sounds a bit serious. What is it?" 

 I watched as the two got up and left the library soundly, but I could still see them watching through the library window. I silently sighed and turned back to Lance, who was watching me carefully. I knew he could tell that I had sent them out of the room for an important reason. It was mostly because confessing to your crush around your friends is something that you just don't do. If you did...well...I don't know what that would make you.

 "Keith?" 

 I snapped out of my mindful state and looked back at Lance. The worry in his eyes was an emotion I had never seen him show before. 

 "If I tell you this, you have to promise you won't flip out about it.." I finally said in a shaky tone. I wanted that shaking to stop but this right here was the moment that Lance would find the feelings I held for him and had locked away behind the door inside of me for years . I was giving him the key to that door and beyond it, he'd find all of the secrets I had hid from him from the start. And once he opens that door, the key is destroyed. 

I am that key.

Because I am the one that decided to lock the door in the first place and I'm the only thing that can open it. Once the key is gone, my life is over.

Metaphorically, of course. We teenagers are very dramatic.

 "I can't promise you anything. It really depends." Lance responded, looking a bit distressed by my words. " But...I'll try. " he finally said in a promising voice. 

"Try" was definitely the word. 

Because boy, did he try.

 I inhaled deeply, glancing down at the table then back up at Lance. It felt like a rollercoaster just reaching the top of the hill. 

 "I like you..." I blurted out awkwardly.

 The rollercoaster is about to go down.