Square One

Chapter 13

Chapter 13 -

You know that feeling when you know something is true but choose to ignore it? And it’s there in front of you the whole time, why did I choose to ignore it? Its like in a test when you know what the right answer is in a multiple choice question, its there, all you have to do it choose it and you’ll get the answer correct. However you either leave the question out, or circle another answer, just in case the other one was wrong.

It was in that moment when the door opened, that I realised, all this time, I had been ignoring the question and missing the answer. My heart skipped a beat for what seemed like the longest second of my life.

Adi.

I don’t understand.

Yes you do. I told myself. You just don’t want to.

Could I really have been this oblivious? So oblivious that I was drowning in my self-pity instead of moving on with my life and realising that my best friend was with me from the start. How could I be so blind?

 The silence continued to follow, he stood there in silence waiting for me to speak but I didn’t know what to say. I tried, opening my mouth but no words came out. I just stared up at him in awe.

“It was you all along wasn’t it?” I said, my heart in my throat, threatening to choke me.

“Yeah,” He shrugged as if it was nothing, holding onto the doorknob as he leaned against its frame.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said almost desperately, tears threatening to spill from my tired eyes.

“I wanted you to find out for yourself.” He said looking at anything but me. His arm muscles tightened visibly through his white singlet top and he gulped like he had said something bad.

It wasn’t his fault I guess. I’m the one who cant muster up anything to say now, too shocked to move or talk. I had to take it all in. He was there all along. His warm brown eyes shun as he looked out of the window far behind me. The tears stung my eyes, making my vision all fuzzy before me. He turned and walked into his room waiting for me to follow. The silence was deafening me but I couldn’t talk, no words or thoughts could form sentences to express what I was feeling right now. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, jaw clenched and not for a single second looking at me.

I stood in the middle of his small room like a helpless little girl all over again, and I hated it. I marched up to him wrapping my arms around his shoulders and let the tears come out this time, not holding them back. Not after long, his arms engulfed around my back and waist, holding me into the tightest hug. His warmth surrounded my whole body and I pulled him tighter, my pathetic sobs the only sound filling the air around us. One of his hands reaching for my neck as he pulled me closer if it was even possible, his face nestling in my hair as mine did the same.

I don’t even know how long we stayed like that, or how long it took for my tears to stop, but eventually he pulled my face away from his shoulder holding it in one of his hands. He laughed softly as my face was soaked in my own tears, feeling the vibrations in his chest. I didn’t dare move any further away from him; I didn’t want to loose him again. His thumbs wiped away my tears and he leaned his forehead against mine, not breaking eye contact.

I stared up at him for a while, taking in my best friend. But I knew I couldn’t do just that all day when there was an entirely different feeling consuming me on the inside. I grabbed his face in my hands, tracing his cheekbones with my fingers, and then his jaw lines. I pulled his face closer to mine staring at his lips and then in his eyes, before his lips met mine and I knew then, that all along not only was I getting a question in a test wrong, It was the entire test that I had gotten wrong. It was never about looking for something good in my life, things like Adrian. But it was all about picking out the bad things and hovering over them like a dark cloud, feeling like the tiny person under them. All along it was the wrong way around, I was the cloud hovering over the problems, when I could have just left them alone. I had done the entire test wrong.