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"I've loved you since we were babies, Andi."
"I've loved you back," she said, giving me a little eye roll like that went without saying.
"No," I said, sighing. "I mean, yes. You've loved me. But I've been in love with you. My whole fucking life."
There.
That was it.
After all these years, it was out.
Maybe I should have felt some sort of relief, but all I could seem to feel was a sort of panic. It was a quicksand at my feet, pulling me down faster and faster as I tried to fight it.
"No."
"No?" I repeated, brows furrowing.
"No, that's not possible."
"Why not?"
"Because...because you would have told me. You tell me everything. Even the embarrassing things. Like the time you were caught watching—"
"Don't. We don't need to relive that memory," I said, cringing inwardly.
"My point is, you never kept anything from me."
"Nothing but this."
"But why?"
"Because you didn't feel the same. Because I didn't want to make it awkward. Because I didn't want you to feel like you needed to date me because of obligation. It didn't seem worth fucking up what we had. It was easier to keep it to myself."
"It was easy to keep it to yourself?" she repeated, brow quirking up.
"Not easy, no. But it was easier. Then your rejection. Or losing you."
"You never had to lose me."
"I was always going to lose you," I corrected. "I had been losing you little by little for a long time before I let go entirely. You went away, you started a new life, you dated other guys. I knew, eventually, you'd find your forever guy. And I just couldn't be around for that."
"Is that why you..." she started, then thought better of asking.
But I knew what she wanted to know.
"Yeah, it's why I became such a miserable prick," I said, giving her a small smile. "It was easier to accept I would never have you if I became so much of a dick that you would never want me."
"That's... God, that is such guy-logic," she said, huffing. "Meaning completely illogical. And in the end, wrong," she told me.
"I wasn't wrong. You don't look at me like you used to, Andi. And you shouldn't. I'm not who I was anymore."
"That's ridiculous," she insisted, shaking her head. "Let me finish," she added when I tried to say something. "On the surface, yeah, you're kind of..."
"An ass?" I suggested.
"Yeah, that. But who ran like on foot, to my work when he thought I was missing? Who came here to ask me what happened that night? Who climbed into bed with me like he used to do all the time in the past? You're still you, Niro. Even if you are a little moodier than usual."
"It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything."
"Did you ever stop to consider that maybe I didn't know how I felt about you? We were kids, Niro. And I lived a very sheltered life. I didn't have a serious date until college. All I knew was that you were the only person I ever really wanted to be around."
"You would have known if it was more than friendly feelings toward me, Andi," I insisted.
"I never considered the possibility of something else," she admitted. "But then I came back here and... I don't know. I guess all that life experience I've gotten since leaving kind of cleared some things up for me."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Tell you how I feel? I think we both know that's not how I operate," she said, giving me a smile. "Things feel different now. I don't know why. And now that I am aware of it, I am starting to see some times in the past that, you know, I did feel some things that I didn't recognize them for what they were at the time."
"Like what?" I asked, feeling something dangerously close to hope start building in my system.
"Like you on the beach and your board shorts were wet from the water so they were hanging kind of low and... yeah," she said, glancing away. "I had felt things. But I don't think they registered until, well, the bathroom. And the parking lot."
"Responding when I touch you isn't the same thing as being in love with me, Andi," I reminded her, even if a part of me wanted to believe it.
"Well, listen," she said, trying for some levity. "This is all new to me. We don't know anything until we give it a shot. Right?"
I did.
I always knew.
But I guess it wasn't fair to expect her to have always known as well.
"I don't know," I admitted.
She had been the brightest part of my life.
But that light came with its own special kind of pain.
It had left wounds.
I was a burnt forest trying to learn to trust the sun again.
"Niro?" she called, voice honey-sweet, dragging me out of my thoughts, drawing my gaze down to her.
