Page 40 of A Play For The Heart
They both look at me with shit-eating grins but don’t push it.Mind your own damn business,I express with my eyes. A girl is allowed to have heated touches on couches with her best friend and not have to explain herself.
We debate the book a while longer before Nathalie yawns and gets up, deciding it’s time for her to head home. It’s 8:30 PM. I know that yawn was fake. The wink she gives me as she passes by confirms my suspicions.
“See you at work tomorrow,” she yells as she leaves.
It’s just Maren, Henry, and I sitting in the living room. Maren makes herself scarce almost immediately.
“I’m going to take a shower. See you later, Henry.” She salutes him as she saunters off towards her bedroom.
With Maren gone, the silence is heavy. Neither of us make a move to part from our position. We sit on the couch for a moment before Henry breaks the silence.
“I should probably go. I have practice tomorrow.”
My stomach drops at the suggestion of him leaving. The idea of him not being here makes me sad. Disappointed. A feeling I will definitely need to address later. It's on the list of priorities I have including figuring out how to get my heart to stop racing in his presence and order more face wash. It's a comprehensive list. Right now, I ignore the feeling and slap a smile onto my face.
“Okay.”
I quickly move towards the door, trying to avoid the emotions attempting to break the surface. As I go to turn the door handle, Henry’s hand intertwines with mine and pulls me into a tight hug. I melt against him almost instantly, sinking into the embrace. We stand there in the entryway for what seems like eons before he finally pulls away.
“I had fun tonight, thanks for letting me stay,” he moves towards the door. “I’ll see you soon, Sawyer.”
He says it, almost as if it’s a promise, then walks out.
I hope it’s a promise.
I clean up the mess in the living room and get ready for bed on autopilot. Lying down in bed, the small moments from tonight rush to the front of my brain. The butterflies I feel when our skin grazes. The way my heart skips a beat when I see him. The disappointment I feel when he’s not around. My mind digs up things in the past. The way my eyes linger on his body and the way I feel when he smiles at me.
I shoot up out of bed. Alarm bells blare in my mind. Dots are connecting and puzzle pieces are falling into place.
Oh. My. God.
Holy shit.
I have a crush on Henry.
A massive, all-consuming crush. On my best friend. This is bad. Not good. No bueno. I begin pacing my room, attempting to rationalize my feelings. Except I can’t. I can feel my feet leaving track marks on the hardwood floor as I pace back and forth, my head scrambling to accept the revelation.
How did this happen?
I firmly told myself to keep my emotions in check when I concocted my idiotic plan. I needed to stay objective in my pursuit to uncover his emotions. Instead of revealing his, I discovered my own. There’s no other explanation for any of my reactions to him except for the fact that I have a massive crush. I grab my phone, hoping Maren can talk me off the cliff that I am inching closer to by the minute.
Me:CODE RED!!!
I shoot her the S.O.S. and resume my pacing. Suddenly I feel stupid for not seeing it before. I’m blaming it on my lack of romantic experience in the past. All of the emotions I’ve felt the past few weeks can be explained by the fact that I have not-friendly feelings for Henry. At first, I thought it was just my need to know if Maren was right or not, but somewhere along the way, the feelings developed. And now here I am, pacing my room trying to figure out what to do with this information. Rule number one of having a best friend is to not develop feelings for said best friend. Did I listen to that rule? Nope.
Thirty seconds later, Maren shoots into my room, arms full of tampons, Tylenol, and chocolate. She’s panting like she just ran a mile and her eyes search my body, lingering on my stomach. I give her a bewildered look, not understanding why on earth she has all that with her.
“Did you start your period?” I ask her, trying to understand what a box of tampons has to do with my distress signal.
“Uh. No. But you said code red. So, I brought everything you needed for a code red.” She looks at me, befuddled like the answer is common sense.
“I meant code red as in ‘I have an emergency’,” I explain.
She flops down on my bed, discarding the tampons and Tylenol to the side and ripping open the bag of chocolate.
“I guess all we need is chocolate then. What’s up?” she asks as she shoves pieces of chocolate into her mouth.
“I have a problem,” I state, not sure how to explain I have feelings for Henry, especially since I just came to the realization myself.
