29 Stories of You and Me

6-Confessions and Promises

Me: If I tell you who you like will you tell me? If so, I can think of a good deal
Lin: Oh yea?
Me: I won't ask you for three months. At all. No mention. At all. I won't even ask whether or not you're gay. Then if you tell me who you honestly like, I'll tell you too
Lin: So after 3 months
Me: Yea. If I mention anything about it, then you don't have to
Lin: OK, fair enough

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~*~

Late-June 2018

Somewhere in the middle of June, I realized that I really really liked Lin.

It was HORRIBLE.

There was no way out. I wanted us to just be friends and I didn't want him to see me differently! What to do what to do...

Allie suggested I wait till Bob got back. I agreed for the sake of pushing it back. I had no idea when exactly I'd tell him but hey, better later than sooner right? Procrastination was the best thing to do in these situations.

Meanwhile, Lin started playing games with me.

He gave me a list of letters that his crush's name did NOT start with, so the only thing I could do was make a list of everyone in our class and cross them out one by one. In the end, he just said no to all of them =_=.

Interestingly enough, he had begun to ask me who I liked now, probably as payback for me asking him too much. To show him that he should trust me, I answered all of his questions except for the actual "who is it?". I even gave him my own list of letters for reference.

But I messed up.

I had confirmed that the person I liked was in our class, which greatly limited the people he could guess.

One night while the two of us were texting, I started asking him if we could stay friends forever, to which he replied: "of course". That made me start to doubt everything.

I trusted Lin with my life. I didn't want to screw up our friendship by weirding him out! What if he just thinks I'm a weird, creepy, and gross girl? I've heard a lot of horrible relationship mishaps, where the girl/guy confesses to their friend and it turns out that their friend does not feel the same way, rejects them, and avoids them for the rest of eternity!

That single thought was enough to keep me from saying anything. During this time, I told Allie about my feelings (she already knew I didn't like Bob so I don't think she was all that surprised). She approached the topic sensitively and told me I needed to tell Bob immediately. Although I constantly asked if I should just do it over text, we both came to the conclusion in the end that it's better to do it in person (once again).

In the meantime, I tried my best to figure out how Lin "felt" about me. Not necessarily romantically, but was I a friend? A close friend? How important was I to him?

I just had to know who he liked.

So I made a promise with him: not to ask him who he liked for a solid three months and then he'd have to tell me who he liked (9/20), and I'd tell him who I actually liked. He agreed to the conditions which made me more confused. Why would he refuse to tell me now but agree to tell me in three months?

There was nothing to do except wait out the three months (which would make it September) and hope we were still good friends and texting a lot every day by that time.

Later that night, we were up very very late.

Perhaps I was just really sleepy?

In the end, I felt like I just had to tell him...

So I sent to him:

"You know I've liked you since the end of the school year right?"

That was a bad choice. (As was the choice to stay up till 4 because I had to get up at 6 A.M. tomorrow...)

I squealed and rolled around in my bed, beating my head with a pillow and cursing. This was horrible! Why did I just do that?! Now he's going to hate my guts and think I'm a creep just like the movies!

A minute later, I finally gathered the courage to look at my phone. The message didn't surprise me...

"Tbh, I already figured that out."

After some quick thinking, I came to the conclusion he was mostly ok with it, considering the fact he guessed already and didn't start avoiding me or anything like that.

He...didn't have much of a reaction? I guess that was only to be expected from Lin though. I wanted answers, maybe for him to tell me how he felt about all of this, but all he did was apologize for making my situation with Bob worse and promise to help me figure things out.

Definitely a fun night.

****

I'm not sure which came first, but after checking today, this particular story actually came before I rashly confessed at 4 A.M. ╮(╯▽╰)╭

SOMEHOW, I managed to have Lin promise to tell me something about himself that he was self-conscious about. I eagerly waited for him to tell me. What made him so quiet and shy?

What he said surprised me. It wasn't a mental condition that caused it. It wasn't something like bad parenting or bullies.

Hahaha...let's just say it was a medical condition that I had never heard of before in my entire life.

My stomach started twisting in knots. I demanded him to tell me the names of people who had made fun of him, asking him if he were depressed. Did I know them?

The stories continued. Everyone in the room going to touch his hands, asking him inappropriate questions. It only made me more pissed...

I really wanted to punch those people in the face.

But the events had all already happened.

There was nothing for me to do about it.