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“I was waiting for you to fall in love with me,” she said.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and suddenly looked very shy and timid. I imagined it was how she must’ve looked when she was very young.
She smiled, but it was sad.
“What a joke, huh?” she said. “For you to love someone like me.”
I joined her on the floor
“No,” I said. “There’s nothing funny about that. Why should it be funny?”
“Because we’ve been seeing each other for the past few months and you never looked at me the way you do when you think about her. She was with us tonight, wasn’t she? I mean, in your mind?”
I couldn’t lie to her.
“Yes.”
She nodded her head in understanding.
“You’re there too, sometimes, when I’m at work or in the club alone,” she said. “I haven’t seen anyone else since we started meeting up. I was sort of hoping it would become a permanent thing.”
She loved me the same way I loved Vicky. I sighed and took her by the hand. I brushed the hair out of her face.
She pressed her hand to my palm.
“Love is a bitch, isn’t it?” I said.
“The worst,” she said.
She loved me, but I couldn’t reciprocate. We were never meant to fall in love. It’d always been for fun. She knew that. But at some point, the tide had turned against her.
“You don’t need to be sorry,” Ettana said. “We both knew what this relationship was when we began it. I guess I was hoping for the impossible.”
“There’s nothing wrong about hoping to find love,” I said. “I do love you, but as a friend.”
She nodded.
“I understand,” she said. “I’m glad you’re still my friend after what I did to you. It wasn’t to hurt you. I just thought we still had a chance at being together.”
“Did what?” I said.
Her eyes searched mine. She looked away, chastened.
“I thought you knew…” she said. “I thought that was why you were acting strange tonight.”
I shook my head.
“What is it?” I said.
She shook her head and cursed herself for having revealed too much.
“Forget it,” she said. “I’m being silly.”
I placed my hand on her arm.
“What is it?” I said.
She squeezed my fingers and smiled sadly. She opened her mouth to speak but the words wouldn’t come.
