Page 71 of Just Friends

“Hey,” she says, tugging on my hands. Her own curl around mine, not letting go, and the touch is like smooth, sweet ice cream after dinner. “You okay?”

My breath releases in a huff as I nod. “Yeah, I’m good.” I meet her eyes, relishing in the familiar deep blue of them. I could stare at those eyes forever and never figure out how to precisely describe the shade. “I just don’t like you being hurt,” I say honestly. “It makes me feel on edge.”

“I’m okay, I promise. You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m not going anywhere.”

Her hand is warm and silky in my own, a reassuring weight, and I squeeze it lightly. “I’m not going anywhere either,” I tell her. “You’re stuck with me.”

Something changes in her face, and Hazel sits up straighter, letting go of my hand. My stomach flips as her gaze darts around the room. When it finally lands on me again, her cheeks are flushed with color, like a ripe peach. The air feels different, charged, and I hold my breath as she watches me for another heartbeat.

“Good to know,” she says finally, and I swear her voice is unsteady.

Standing, I squeeze one of the milkshakes from the cardboard carrier and hand it to her. Her face lights up, her eyes twinkling as they meet mine.

“Milkshakes for breakfast?”

I nod, a smile touching my lips. “Sugar coma in a cup.”

She cracks the plastic lid off the top, and I hand her a clear spoon, which she immediately dips into the thick vanilla ice cream. A low sound purrs from the back of her throat.

“Sugar comas taste good.”

Snorting, I shake my head. “I brought a puzzle too.”

Hazel sits up taller, grinning, and the throw blanket slides down her shoulders to land in the crooks of her elbows. “You’re allowing me to do something other than stare into the void of darkness?”

“Yes, but keep it up, and you’ll lose puzzle privileges,” I tell her, clearing off her coffee table—fresh flowers she got from the market last week, a thick hardcover book that serves no purpose other than looking pretty that I returned after she tried leaving it at my condo, and an assortment of colorful coasters that she and Lucy made at one of those boozy craft studios.

She snorts a laugh, sliding off the couch and onto the floor, crossing her legs under the coffee table. The puzzle pieces rattle against the inside of the box as she picks it up, examining the photo on the front.

Her eyes lift to mine under the heavy fringe of her thick lashes, and a slow smile blooms over her lips. “Butterflies?”

“Oh, do you like those?” I sink to the floor across from her, stretching my legs under the table and nudging her knee with my own.

Puzzle pieces in every color clatter against the scarred wooden table as she dumps them out, sending them skittering in every direction. “You know what would make this even better?” Hazel asks, smiling sweetly.

“Hmm?”

“A movie,” she says with a sigh.

“Not a chance.”

The morning slips into afternoon, the sun arcing through the slits in the curtains, casting slivers of light through the living room that Hazel basks in like a cat as we sift through puzzle squares. We talk little, but even silence with her is better than conversation with anyone else.

It feels like something out of a film, sitting on the floor with her on the laziest of Sundays. It’s the kind of day that makes you nostalgic or homesick, like you’re already missing the memory, even though it’s still happening. The kind of day that carves out a nook in your chest where it will sit, even when you’re wrinkled and gray. Like a time-worn fragment of magic you can remember even when everything else starts to fade.

It’s the lock of golden-brown hair that keeps slipping from behind her ear that decides it for me. Or maybe it’s the faintest hue of pink on her cheeks from hours in the sun yesterday. Or that smile that stretches across her face, making all the colors in the room look dimmer. Or the weight of her knee that’s been pressed against mine for an indeterminable stretch of time.

Either way, as the day shifts from morning to afternoon, time stretching and bending like saltwater taffy, I know I have to tell her. The love in my chest has turned into an ache I can no longer ignore. And even if it ends up slicing through me and cutting deep, I can’t keep holding on to it like it’s a shameful secret.

I can’t do it today, on this perfect day ripped from the pages of a book and pressed into the spines of our story, but I have to do it soon. I have to do it before the love eats me alive, devouring every little piece of me I’ve kept hidden until I’m a shell of who I used to be.

Soon, I’ll tell Hazel I love her.

Thenextweekend,mymom calls while we’re on the way to the lake house, windows down, the warm breeze snaking around me and whipping my hair into a mess that will take days to untangle.

“Mind if I answer this?” I ask Alex. He’s in the driver’s seat of my car, steering us farther and farther away from the city. The scenery has turned from glittering high-rises to muted bi-levels to rolling green hills dotted with the occasional dilapidated, burned tobacco barn.

He spares a look my way, keeping his arm propped on the open window, sunshine making freckles pop up over his skin like stars in the night sky. “Of course not. Go for it.”

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