Silverfish

Trying Is Hard Sample 2

I am sitting alone on the field when he approaches me, lazily stretching my hamstrings in a sort of disconnected daze. Practice wasn't going to start until about another half hour, so I figured I'd force my mind into a frozen, absent stare before having to focus all of my energy on the choices of others.

"Would me telling you that I love you make you uncomfortable?" He suddenly asks, sitting down beside me.

My eyes widen and meet his immediately, that comfortable haze now replaced with the frantic pounding of my heart, "What?"

Gabe glances around himself quickly, that constant reassurance that we were alone necessary for continuing this conversation, "Yeah, I just didn't want to make things weird if I said it, so I wanted to ask you first."

I feel the blood rush to my cheeks quickly, realization of what exactly was going on in this moment now very apparent to my mind–he loves me.

I wasn't exactly sure how to reply to such an intense and inspiring statement; of course I loved him as well (I had for a while now) but I wasn't about to just admit that to him so freely. I still place myself in a very confining emotional cage, except the door was always unlocked, and I was free to leave whenever I wanted. But of course with that auspicious freedom comes my own need to restrict myself. I wasn't used to allowing myself that much.

However, this seemingly nonchalant way he approaches everything made me feel as though there really wasn't a need to force myself into that small confinement after all. That I would be, essentially, O-K.

He leans towards myself as if to encourage that freedom, "Hey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"I love you too," I blurt out suddenly in such a obtrusive and hideous way.

Fuck, that was terrible.

He beams at me, tucking his long hair out of his face before softly kissing my cheek, "You don't know how happy that makes me."

That contact seemed to linger like a gentle wind even after he had pulled away from myself; and instead of my usual anxiety and panic-stricken heart as a result his very presence, I felt entirely reposed. A reposition I certainly was not used to but fuck, it felt good.

My lips twitched upwards involuntarily at the thought of feeling completely and utterly congenial. I met his gaze and inhaled deeply, "Wish I could kiss you right now."

"Later, we could meet behind the school's vegetable garden or something after practice," he offers suggestively.

"Or you could come over?" I countered.

I, of course selfishly, wanted more time with him than just a fleeting moment behind the garden; I needed more. It was like his presence fed into my desperation like some sort of hungry tyrant. And a part of me really did fear this animalistic nature, but another almost embraced it–carrying myself happily along with those consuming coercions as if I had been about this way forever.

Gabe shifts his weight uncomfortably before sitting down across from myself, "Um, I don't know my dad might get pissed if he doesn't know where I am."

I cock my head to the side in confusion, "Your dad never knows where you are, he's never cared. Or at least that's what you've said about him."

"Well he might," Gabe snaps suddenly, exhaling slowly before composing himself again, "Shit, sorry, I just–I don't know. Not tonight."

I bite my lip out of that awful insecurity but persist onwards, forcing myself to maintain a certain countenance in front of him, "That's okay."

But was it? Fuck no.

Was it something I had said? Of course, I was much too eager and too goddamn attached that I just had to suggest that he come over afterwards. And to do what? Sit in my room and pretend that I 'just had a friend over' so my mother wouldn't get suspicious. But then constantly hoping that just maybe we'd get a chance to pretend that we were a normal couple–that we were able to do and say whatever we wanted to each other in front of whomever without a goddamn consequence? Albeit a consequence that had the very real potential of destroying the both of us. But regardless, I need that. I need the love everyone desires and more importantly, the love I deserve.