M, actually.

Love you like a friend

"I mean that's all i've ever done, Emma. Is love you like a friend."

Just like that I felt my heart shatter into a million pieces. Have you ever heard something that just ruined you completely, just a sentence that made you question how a spoken combination of 26 different letters could make you feel like you just swallowed broken glass? That's how I felt at this exact moment. I wanted to scream and cry all at once. But I knew better. I wanted to say No Michael. I don't love you, i'm IN LOVE with you it's different. I wanted to tell him I've sort of kinda been in love with you since the seventh grade and every time I watch you sneaking into my window I want you to stay in my room, telling me your sloppy stories about getting caught drunk by your parents, and our late night adventure when you look over at me and even though I can barely see you, I can picture your exact facial expression. And you tell me you love me too, as a friend of course, and even though it hurts, it hurts so good because I'll take anything I can get. And I just.. I love you so much Mike and you're never going to get that through your fucking thick skull are you? But I knew better

"Em, you ok? You look like you're about to pass out or something." M asked. Quickly I snapped out of the conversation occurring in my head and got back to the one in real life.

"What? Me? Yeah i'm peachy keen." I forced laughed, "You know me, haha, I’m great. A great friend. Friend."

Mike smiled back, "Yeah my friend, my best friend."

"Well if you don't mind Mike i'm going to get the fuck out of here." I smiled as I stormed away, ripping my hand from his grasp. I walked right by Kat asking me what had happened and marched straight to the bar. "Give me some vodka with red bull and keep it coming." I ordered the man standing behind the counter. I needed to completely forget about tonight.

"Excuse me Princess, but I don't work here." Responded the anonymous man. Only when I picked up my head to look at him did I noticed he was dressed in Jeans and a black t-shirt. "But you know what? By the looks of it you could really use a drink. So vodka with redbull coming up, hun."

"Need a drink? Is that another way of telling me I look like shit?" I joked. The guy laughed.

"Maybe. Name's Nate," he extended his hand to meet mine "Pleasure."

"Hello Matt, my name is Emma.

"No, not Matt, Nate!" he corrected me.

"oh, my bad Nate! Pleasure's all mine, now if you could assist me; I need to be drunk right now." I smiled. Straightforward, maybe, but I really needed to be either drunk or distracted right now.

"I'm going, i'm going. But first, " he said taking out a spliff "Aha! Here you go, courtesy of being my new friend." Nate passed me the spliff as well as my first cup of alcohol. I downed the cup and light the joint as I looked him up and down. "We're going to get along just fine." I told this new no longer stranger. I don't know if it was the excessive amount of alcohol or my excessive amount of desperation... but he was cute. Scratch that, he was pretty damn hot.

"But, you see the thing is, Nate." I smirked, taking in a long drag of my spliff before exhaling. "I'm not really looking for a 'friend' right now. You feel me?" I winked.

"I feel you." He said a smile appearing on his face "... or at least, i'd like to."
___________________________
About six more shots of Coconut Malibu later, Nate and I were in the middle of the dance floor dancing to some song I can't even remember the name of. As he slowly started getting closer to me, I quickly noticed Mike eyeing us. He seemed mad. 'Good' I thought to myself, I mean I had all the right to piss him off. What he said to me was one of the biggest asshole moves I've ever seen! I mean sure, there was always that slight possibility that he didn't mean to hurt me with what he said, but by the way he smirked at me as if he knew how bittersweet those words tasted ... I was almost positive he knew.

The closer Nate and I got the tighter Mike's jaw clenched, so naturally I moved in so that there was zero space between the both of us.

"You're not shy at all for someone I just met." whispered Nate into my ear.

"You don't know the half of it." I answered as I turned around and kissed him close enough to the lips for Mike to thing that I hadn't missed. If he wanted to play this game, I sure as hell wasn't backing out.

"Woah, that was quite the tease!" Nate said, half disappointed and half surprised at what had just happened. I laughed at his extremely honest comment and pretended to drunkenly throw my arms around his neck.

"We should get out of here." I winked, grabbing him by the hand and leading him upstairs after looking back at Mike who seemed to be getting more furious as the seconds passed. I was about to open the bedroom door when Nat spoke, "Listen, Emily was it?"

"Emma" I corrected him.

"Right, Emma, you seem like a nice girl and all and you also seem extremely drunk and I wouldn't want to take advantage of you like that." I bursted into laughter.

"You didn't think I was actually going to rail you right here and now, did you?" Another fit of laughter escaping my lips. "Listen you seem great and all, but I'm honestly not that type of girl."
Poor Nate seemed so confused as he started looking around.

"Is this a joke? Did one of my friends put you up to this? Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but you have been flirting with me quite intensely for a solid 2 hours. And you're leading me to none other than a bedroom."

"No, you're not wrong and I guess I was a bit misleading, but really I didn't intend for it to go this far. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure what I was going to do after opening this door .. it's just he drives me crazy!"

"He?"

"Ugh, yes he! Mr. You're-a-great-friend-Em!"

"Ooh, the friend zone. Tough situation you're put in there. But I completely understand, why do you think I was at the bar in the first place?" He laughed.

"Makes sense. But now if I go down I'm going to look like the biggest idiot, and he'll know it was all a play." I frowned, my plan hadn't been executed very well and I wasn't about to go fuck some guy I just met. So I turned around and began to walk away from this extremely embarrassing moment.

"No, you don't have to go. I mean we can just go in and talk." Talk? Either I looked so drunk and ugly that this kid didn't even want to get near me or he was actually decent, which was an unfamiliar concept to me.

"You're a nice guy, you know that Nate?"

"I've been told once or twice." He chuckled before opening the door and shutting it behind me.