Wishbone

9 - no vanity

Paige and I had gotten back to Los Angeles around eleven in the morning the following day. We left the campsite as soon as we woke up with minimal conversation, and barely talked the entire drive home. The whole morning was filled with awkwardness and awful anxiety for myself, and I imagined for her, too. It was sad because we usually brought each other so much comfort.

She drove the whole four hours home, and the entire time I just looked out the window. I let her have the aux, so we didn't have to speak to each other as much. And some people might say, Chloe, why were you so upset after the girl you considered leaving your girlfriend of two years for kissed you?

Because she apologized after she did it, and acted like it was a mistake, even after I said it was okay. It was practically rejection, like she had never meant to do it in the first place. And the entire day, like I described, she was standoffish, and I was too socially awkward to coerce her into really discussing it. I only tried once, when we were about halfway home.

"Hey," I said cautiously, turning down the music a bit and starting to feel myself tremble. "Um...are you okay?"

Paige blinked, but she didn't look over at me. "Yeah, I'm fine."

I swallowed, and my heart ached. "Are we okay?"

"Yeah," She answered quietly, which made me think we were not really okay. "Sorry, just focused on driving right now."

I drew back, looking out the window again. I knew she didn't want to talk to me, and that's what hurt. Would she really throw away our friendship over one kiss that lasted not even three minutes? To be fair, I didn't think Paige ever kissed a woman before. Maybe she was trying to figure that out, too? But even if I didn't like her in that way, I was still her best friend, who had seen her do way more embarrassing things than that.

"It—It wasn't bad for me, Paige," I managed to spit out, my heart beating quickly. That earned a fast glance from her, and I could tell she was struggling to respond. "We don't have to be weird about it."

"Can we not talk about it?" She whispered, and all I could do was nod, feeling defeated. She turned the volume back up on the music.

When we got back to my apartment and unloaded the gear, she left before I could even say goodbye. I would have appreciated some help carrying things inside, as it was raining, but whatever. It reminded me a lot of the phone call I had with Brook before I left LA the previous day, and by the way, she didn't text me once the entire time I was out of service. That was another thing I had to deal with...I technically, by definition, cheated on her the night before!

With a deep breath, I decided that was what I was going to deal with first, to take my mind off of Paige for a second. The way she leaned down and kissed me replayed in my mind relentlessly, and all I wanted was for her to come back and tell me she loved me, and to do it again. But she was...not mad at me, but seeming to avoid me.

Brook came over when I called and said I was back. I watched as she scraped the mud from her shoes on the rug just inside my door, wondering how long it would be before I would see her do that again. I had a feeling that, for a couple weeks at least, every time it rained and I had to wipe my shoes off, I would think of her. Though I was confident going on a break with her was the right decision, it still made me sad.

"So, how was it? You look tired," She said, sitting next to me on the couch. "Not in a bad way, just...the dark circles under your eyes."

"Turns out I don't sleep well on the ground when I don't have a pillow," I chuckled, but my face fell shortly after, thinking, I also don't sleep well when my best-friend-crush kisses me, and then acts like it was a mistake. "It was okay."