My Little Black Book of Thoughts

Excerpt From A Book I'll Never Write No. 4

"Tell me something you've never told me before," she said, her eyes fixated on the stars, trying to avoid his hazel eyes, because it would just hurt more when his answer didn't coincide with the one she longed for.

I think I'm in love with you.

In a perfect world, those seven words would slip out of his lips like honey, slowly and sweetly. His eyes would light up as he met hers, and her heart would leap to her throat. She knew it was stupid to hope. In all their years of friendship, she had let herself be disappointed time and time again. And she wished she could blame it on him, but really after the first time, it was all her. She built up so much hope, thought that he would finally change. And every time she hurt herself more. But she couldn't leave him. Because when she thought of him, she thought of home. His arms were the ones she thought of when she was having a bad day. And when she got good news, she was most excited to tell him. He was such a big part of her day, of her life, and filling that void would break her.

"Like what?" his voice cut through the whispering of the summer breeze. 

"Like how you feel about me. Because there's times when I think you're ready to tell me you love me, and other days when you're so distant that I don't even feel like we're friends. I want to know because I need to decide what to do. I can't keep living with this doubt, it weighs my heart down too much. I keep waiting for you because my heart is in your hands, but if you're just going to hold it there and not do anything about it, then it might be time for me to take it back."

In a perfect world, she would have the courage to ask him that.

"I don't know, a random childhood memory, a random fact about you, a secret..." she said instead. She let the word hang in the air between them, a subtle invitation for him to tell her what he really thought.

"When I was little, my mom convinced me I had superpowers and that I could change the traffic lights from red to green." Even though it wasn't the answer she wanted from him, at least it wasn't a rejection. Her heart wouldn't be able to handle that pain, at least not in front of him.

"Maybe you did, but they had to take them away because you were too powerful," she said with a forced yet relieved laugh, turning to meet his eyes. Turning his answer into a lame joke was all she could think to do to mask her disappointment, and act as if that was the answer she had been looking for all along.

"Yea, maybe," he laughed, and thankfully, turned his eyes away from her and towards the sky. That way he wouldn't have to see her fake smile slip away.

-05/01/2019