He smiles back at me and shrugs, recovering from our little shared moment of stress.
‘Whatever it is, I love it,’ he says.
I nod. ‘I love us.’
‘I loveyou.’
‘Yeah, as afriend,’ I say, nodding.
But as I look back at him, something has changed. There’s a pallor across his face, all traces of humour gone.
‘Do you think you’ll only ever see me as a friend?’ he asks.
I rush to answer. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘But you haven’t denied it.’ His eyes remain cloudy and he glances around at the streetlights, the buildings – anything that’s not me. He rarely gets this serious and each time he has, it has turned my stomach in the exact same way. The more we’ve travelled together, the more I’ve found myself emoting through him. He smiles, I feel joy; he frowns and my chest dips too. That’s not just friendship. That’s something deeper. I think I’ve known that for a while. But I’ve also seen how easily I ruin good things in my life.
I shudder at the thought of us growing apart and being nothing but internet mutuals who silently view each other’s stories, all because I let my heart get the better of what could have been a lifelong friendship. As my chest starts to grow tight, I wrestle with the knowledge that’s lingered in the back of my mind for months.
I can’t go back to a life without Noah.
‘I really do care about you.’ I stare at the ground as I mumble.
The words skate just above a whisper, the lightest tread I can take.
‘That’s what girls say whenever they’re about to let someone down easy,’ he says jokingly.
I study how his face doesn’t move in time with his foray into humour, in stark contrast to the way that it usually does. I pausefor a moment, stopping both of us in our tracks, and swivel around so we’re face to face.
‘I’m not letting you down; I would never,’ I say firmly. ‘I like you too much to ever dare.’
I’ve been open around Noah. He knows more about me than most and he’s certainly seen me in every light. He knows my weaknesses and my fears, he knows I love him to some degree, but he doesn’t know me like this. He doesn’t know how much I care. This kind of openness is terrifying. It grips at my skin, stretching and pulling and begging me to retreat once again.
I need him to react – to move – to grab my face and kiss me, and tell me to give up on the dates once and for all. I want to clutch his hand in mine and race back to our apartment, spend the whole night declaring our love and making up for lost time. I want to waste tomorrow in bed as we laugh about how silly we’ve been, dating other people when we were right here in front of each other. I want to love him the way I’ve known I do for a while now. And I want him to love me back. But right now, all he does is stare.
‘I like you too.’ His voice is deep. ‘Too much, for sure. I think about this, about us and I... well, I think we should—’
A loud, piercing ring fills the air, forcing us to jump apart. He grapples for his pocket, whipping out his phone quickly, his eyes widening as he stares at the screen.
‘Sorry, I have to take this.’ He looks up at me. ‘Shit timing, I know. Stay right there, please? Don’t move.’
He scurries off a few feet away as I stand there with my thoughts, my heart pitter-pattering until he returns.
It stops the second he comes back. In the mere minutes he was on the phone, his whole demeanour has changed. That heart-fluttering nervousness has been superseded by something paler, something graver, something... apologetic. I try to stare into hiseyes but they look straight through me, caught in a daze as his mind dwells on whatever he just came from.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask, my pulse racing at the speed of light.
I hold my breath as my words bring him back to life. He blinks once, twice, a third time, before straightening up and slapping on the smile I’ve come to love him for. But as I look into it, I notice the way it droops at the sides and the way his lip quivers as it tries to keep up the sham.
‘Yeah, I’m fine, I think.’
He shoves his hands in his pockets, eyes dropping from mine straight to the floor.
‘That was Eléa. She broke up with her boyfriend and she wants me to come to Nice.’
I went to Verona and all I got was...
. . .a last-minute visit
