The LoveShot

Building Walls

"Here. I made you another bowl." Looking up at him for a second, she finally took the bowl after coming out of her daze.

"Thank you." She blushed with her eyes glued to the soup. All was quiet as she couldn't ignore the itch to ask him those burning questions she had. "Why don't you want to talk about it?" She blurted. "You seem so ready and willing to talk about things like this some other time." She looked up at him with furious eyes, though she, herself, was not in any way angry at him.

"I don't think you're ready for it." He sighed. Her confusion consumed her.

"What?" She exclaimed. "What do you mean I'm no-? Wha-? How can you be the one to determine that for me?"

"Because I really think that, based off of recent events and actions I've observed, that you're not ready to open up to me. Not quite yet." He simply stated, keeping his eyes ahead, away from hers.

"Whether I'm ready or not should be up to me, not you." She scoffed as she rolled her eyes. "Who do you think you are? My father?" She grumbled to herself.

"As your friend, I should be the one to tell you when I feel that you're not ready for something." He finally looked over at her for a split second before returning his gaze in front of him. From that split second of seeing his face, she could tell that whatever they weren't discussing was hurting him, but she had to press on.

"No, as my friend, you should be willing to talk things out and resolve problems between us in order to maintain this friendship." His head snapped in her direction allowing her to see the distress on his face clear as day.

"Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, there really is no more room for a friendship like this?" His pain-filled eyes screaming for her and she heard him; but she could help but drown them out with the pain of the bullet of a question he just shot at her.

"What do you.. mean?" Her eyes let out a single tear that wasn't meant to be shed. He turned his head downwards - he couldn't watch her cry.

"I just mean that.." he sighed. "Have you ever once considered how everything has been making me feel?" He paused and let it sink into her skull for a moment. "Has it ever occurred to you how much it might actually be hurting me to have to keep having these emotions bottled up for a girl who isn't even aware in the slightest bit of how she may truly feel about me? Or how perhaps something from last night struck a nerve that I don't want to deal with right now?" She watched as his face turned red, hiding the tear that fell from the opposite side of what she could see of him. "Does any of that even matter to you? Do you even care how I feel?"

"Brian.." She began. "How is it fair that you get to torment me into telling you the truth about things that I don't want to talk about, but it's an inconsiderate sin of me to do the same to you? I don't get it." She threw her hands up in the air. "I don't!"

"Yes. You have a point, but you know what?" He turned his gaze to look directly into her eyes. "The only difference between me and you is that I know exactly how I feel, and you do too. And deep down inside, I know you know how you truly feel about me, but am I not the only one who's not running away?" Speechless, she stared back down at her soup again.

"How could you possibly know anything that I could possibly feel for you?" She spat.

"Even if you had never told me, I would always know, because it shows." He simply stated, creating an even deeper, yet horrifying confusion within her. Putting her hand to her lips, she sat back in horror as she flipped through her memories trying to figure out where she had said or confessed to him about what was going on.

"How-? When did I.. tell you?" Her eyes slowly looked up at his as he sat there in silence.

"Even now, you make it so obvious that you're trying to hide yourself from me.." Lightly shaking his head, he chuckled lightly to himself in disbelief. "Last night." He nodded. "Last night, you told me that you loved me."

"I was drunk!"

"But I know that truth. Your body language says it all the time. How you think you can just string me along and play around in hopes that I'll just be your loyal dog and sit in silence while you try to figure out every little thing that's going on in that-.." He bit his tongue.

"That what? Say it!" She spat.

"That beautiful mind of yours.." Casting his gaze to the side, he sighed. "Why am I wasting my breath?" He whispered to himself before looking back up at her. "You wanna know what happened last night? Fine. Here it is. We had a few drinks, you confessed a lot of shit to me and I almost fell for your antics. Gosh.. You make me feel like shit!" He shouted, startling her. "You really think you have everything figured out and you don't, Suzanna. You really don't. If you want to continue being friends, and I truly do mean just being friends? Then we have to draw some boundaries. Starting now."

"So you wan-?"

"Stop it. Just stop talking for a moment and let me speak." He said, putting up his hand. "Being friends with me obviously means something entirely different to you. And so, from now on, we play on my terms. When we act, we act. When we are not acting, we will not be doing any of the things that we've done in the past. You'll never hear me talk to you about there being an 'us' - I promise I will never entertain that idea again. We will not hold hands, we won't be having anymore moments like this or last night. We will litterally be exactly as you have been trying so desperately to spell out for me this entire time. That way, you can truly see what that feels like and maybe then you'll come to your senses."