Cheryl gave a weak smile. “I… No?”
Patrick put his fingers through his hair and pulled. Hard. “God-fucking-dammit!”
“I’m sorry!” she garbled. “We don’t have to… I mean, we can… But I’d rather—”
“Act like nothing happened?”
“Would that work or…?”
Anger, real anger, flashed across Patrick’s face, distorting his features. “Of course, it won’t fucking work.”
She flinched and a muscle flicked in his cheek.
“Sorry,” he said sharply. “I can’t do this, Cheryl.”
His use of her name was like a whip across her face. “Don’t. Don’t withhold your friendship from me just because I won’t date you.”
“I don’t want to withhold anything from you, but if we’re not gonna make something of this, I can’t. I can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“You really wanna know?”
Cheryl felt like she was shrinking, tumbling, like Alice down the rabbit hole. No. “Yes.”
Patrick took a deep breath and the air around her seemed to crystallise.
“I’m…”
Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.
“… in love with you.” His eyes shone at her like twin suns. “Head over fucking heels, KitKat.”
Cheryl’s heart was singing Disney songs. Her head was screaming death metal.
“… I’ve always loved you,” he said, cheeks burning bright red. “Always. Everyone gives me shit about it. Everyone knows. Except you, I guess, but I always hoped…”
He stared at her, begging her to say something, but her throat was a pinhole. She couldn’t talk. So he went on:
“I didn’t think you wanted me that way because you were maybe only into old dudes and I was happy to have any part of you. I was okay with us being friends. But now we’ve done what we’ve done…” He rubbed the back of his neck, making his godlike body ripple. “Why can’t we just give it a chance?”
Because we’ll burn it all down.
“What?”
Cheryl put a hand to her mouth. She’d said it out loud. Told the truth like a moron.
“Burn what?”
Her skin was both sweaty and clammy. Her chest ached.
“I can’t be your girlfriend,” she said. “I can’t and I just… won’t.”
The sun vanished from Patrick’s face. Bad weather rolling in like a curse. “Then I hate to say it, but I don’t think we can be mates anymore.”
Her eyes burned and she realised she was stupidly close to crying. “So, this is it? You really don’t want to be friends anymore?”
“What do you think we can do from here?” he asked. “I’m in love with you and you want to suck my dick, then pretend nothing happened. What would us hanging out even look like?”
