Tennis Imagines

Dominic Thiem

It's been nearly three months after the thing happened between Dominic and you. Three months of awkwardly trying to avoid each other at social events, when the two of you made the agreement that that was exactly what you didn't want to happen. You wanted him to be a part of your life, it didn't matter in which way, you just wanted him there. But clearly, he had other thoughts.

Three months ago, you finally managed to step up and tell Dominic about the feelings you had developed for him. You remember the exact words you spoke to him that night, you were so nervous and it took you weeks to get the courage to open about it. But when you found out that Kobe Bryant suddenly died in a helicopter crash, you realized that you shouldn't take life for granted. You walked up to his room and spoke the words who had been haunting you ever since.

''Domi, I really like you. You're the one I want to be with and I've just come to realize that. I love you, I honestly do you've always been there for me,'' you said to Dominic blushing from ear to ear. For moments Dominic didn't answer, he just stared at the floor not moving anything of his body. It made you shiver, one day earlier his best friend Alexander confirmed to you that Dominic had feelings for you as well, but why didn't he say something? Or even just look at you?

''I can't,'' he eventually said. He didn't say anything more, he didn't say he liked you or didn't like you back. He didn't say he loved you or that he didn't love you and he didn't come to hug you. He just stood up, walked over to his mirror and grabbed his key card to leave the room, repeating that he couldn't. You had never felt so uncomfortable around him before. You stumbled, ''what do you mean you can't? I thought....'' you didn't know what to say, ''I thought you liked me back in that way,'' you whispered and your eyes started filling up with tears.

''I do, it's not that I don't like you I mean look at you,'' Dominic said but he didn't look at you. ''You're wonderful and you always manage to make me smile no matter how fucked up my day has been and that means a lot I swear it does,'' Dominic answered and he walked over to the window. ''I just...I don't want to ruin our friendship,'' he added.

You didn't know what to say or how to act. ''I won't let love ruin our friendship, I'm sorry'' Dominic answered. You looked up to him, wondering how he could say that. ''But why would it ruin our friendship? Wouldn't we become closer if we started this? If we tried?'' you practically begged him. Dominic finally turned around and looked you in the eyes, noticing that you had been crying. He shrugged his shoulders, ''I don't think we can become any closer then we already are,'' he answered.

''And what if we did this? Just think about if we started dating and we'd eventually broke up you think that we'd be friends the way we are now? I don't want to lose that, it feels so good between us and dating and then breaking up....'' Dominic whispered, ''things never work out for ex-lovers that way''. You smiled, not knowing what to answer on that.

That evening, you tried to convince Dominic that the two of you would work out even if you'd eventually split as a couple and that you understood where he was coming from. But it didn't work, because at the end of the evening Dominic told you that he wanted to stay friends and that he wanted to keep on going the way you had been going on with each other. He said that you and him both had to ignore the romantic feelings for one another and that someday, somebody else would sweep yours and his heart away and all the problems were gone.

You didn't agree and you were hurt, but you did not want to be that one girl begging a boy to date with her. Not anymore.

But little did you know, that that was the opposite of what was going to happen. From that day on, Dominic started to behave different towards you. It began with cancelling things you two had planned together, when you had planned to go with him to the movies he suddenly felt ill or forgot that he had another appointment scheduled as well. You didn't think much of it, until it started to happen more often.