The confession
“I love you”
“What?” I whipped my head around, this came from nowhere, my best friend Heather, the person I’ve always been around just sprung this up on me.
I looked at her from where we were standing. We’d been on a walk around the city for the fun of it, just to pass the time together. Neither of us had really spoken the entire time; we just kind of walked side by side. It wasn’t a weird or awkward silence; it was a comfortable silence—just how I liked it. But now it was filled with an uncomfortable silence because I didn’t feel the same about her.
“I love you, Francis.” She said it so earnestly I could she meant it, she was blushing and everything. Oh fu-.
“O-oh, um I'm sorry but I don't feel the same way.” I seriously felt bad and I know it showed on my face, but I wasn’t gay, I didn’t like girls, I didn’t even know she liked girls until now.
Her face dropped from the sweet confession look she had to a sad look she was embarrassed and I don’t blame her. How long has she liked me? How long did it take her to muster up the courage to ask me out? Dang it, I'm starting to feel horrible for saying no but I can’t help that I don’t like her and I don’t and I won’t force feeling on myself.
“O-oh..”
“Yeah, I'm sorry but I don’t like girls, I don’t even know if I like people romantically.”
“Oh, im sorry for springing that up on you.”
“No you’re ok, we can still be friends though if you want. I know those types of things don’t tend to work out but we can make it happen.”
“.. I guess so.”
I can't with the tension that's in between us it’s so heavy that it's hard to breathe and just an overly awkward tension. I need to leave and get away from it or I'll start blushing from embarrassment. Then it'll be even worse if that’s possible. I pretend to check my watch already deciding to flee the uncomfortable scene.
“Well, it's getting late so I better take my leave. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, have a safe trip home.”
And with that, I made my leave. As soon as I was out of eyesight I booked it to my house, this’ll make a great joke when we’re past this awkward stage, who knows maybe I can just pretend that today never happened. I do it a lot and she always goes with it.
I made it home absolutely winded from running the entire time. While running is energy-consuming, it does wonders for the nervous. I walked in my front door, and the sweet smell of food being cooked hit my nose as I opened the door. I walked in and headed to the kitchen to see my roommate cooking. I don't know what it was, but it smelled beautiful and would definitely taste better.
“Smells delectable.”
“Delectable? You've never used that word before. You sure you know what it means?”
“Oh shush, good food deserves good long unused words.”
“Mhm, sure. Why are you winded?”
“Ran home for fun, now hurry up be a woman and cook.” We always poked at one another like this, it was our way of showing we care and that we were friends in a way. We were close enough to joke with each other.
“Oh, shut up you're also a woman, don't get your tits in a twist just because you have a man's name.”
“Hey, Francis is a gender-neutral name thank you very much” I started making my way to the makeshift living space we have. Our floor plan was mostly open, there were only doors for our bedrooms and bathroom, everything else was wide open so I could see her from where I sat.
I waited about ten more minutes before the food was ready. When it was done, she called me into the kitchen space with an insult and I dragged myself into the kitchen with a ‘Hey don't say mean things,” but we both didn't care. She started insulting me even more after I said that.
After all the insults and food I cleaned up dinner since we had a whole agreement on ‘if you made it you don't clean it’ when it came to food. Neither of us ever did both unless the other was completely incapable of doing so which was close to never. As soon as I was done cleaning up I headed back to my room. Our eating was about as much talking as we did in a day, none more none less. It was nice, but I didn't like talking.
When I hit my bed I looked at my phone to see a missed text message from Heather. Oh gosh, I don't want to text her right now, I still feel the awkward tension in my head, but flat-out ignoring her was far worse than the tension so I pulled up our texts.
Heather: hey, once again I just wanted to say sorry about today in the park. We can pretend that it never happened.’
Francis: it's ok and that would be nice to just forget about it.
I put my phone down thinking she wouldn't be on since she'd texted me half an hour ago, but as soon as I put my phone down it went off letting me know I got a text. So I groaned and picked my phone back up to look at our text messages and see if I had to respond.
Heather: ok, I can 100% do that.
I sighed in relief, we'd go back to being friends, like this never happened, great. I so did not want to deal with her crushing all over me and being mad over my rejection. She probably still is but she won't show it. It might seem unhealthy and it probably is but it's how we roll. I put my phone down for good this time, I didn't see the need to respond to her.
Now that I was lying down I realized how tired I was. I blame it on the running, I hate running with a passion unseen by anyone. If I could never do it again I would but sadly we don't like in a world where I can just walk. Sometimes people are late to events and so you have to run to get there in time, or if you're really unlucky and in a horror film you have to run away from a killer but actually, you just run to him for the ‘plot’. I hate it when that happens I don't know if you can tell.
While thinking about everything my eyes drop further and further down and I fall asleep on my bed. I didn't even change, I was just in my day clothes. And what sucks the most is that I didn't plug in my phone, that's gonna be a pain tomorrow but whatever, I have a battery pack and it is charged.