Falling Slowly

Chapter Twenty-Four: What Are Best Friends For?

Special thanks to slimsalvatore for her fanart on the side! :) Also, I'd like to recognize both lverlaine & Infinite_Xx for being amazing friends! You guys could read how mean they were to me on my board xD Give a song on the side a listen! :) It is one of my favorites!

Happy Reading! ♥

Chapter Twenty-Four: What Are Best Friends For?

Gemma was furiously signing at me, her eyes blazing with anger and frustration. I couldn’t blame her. I was pretty angry at myself too. But what could I do? It’s not like I purposefully ran away from Liam Saturday. Did I want to run away from him? No. But under the circumstances I couldn’t let him get that close to me. I wouldn’t.

It would be a week tomorrow since we’d last spoken. We’d both gone back to awkwardly ignoring each other at school, acting like the other didn’t exist. I knew that it wasn’t exactly like that per se. I saw him sneaking a glance my way during class when I would sneak a peek at him. It was childish, I know. But I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him. And judging from Liam’s behavior he couldn’t exactly work up the nerve to approach me either.

“Go talk to him. Now.” Gemma signed, lightly nudging me in the direction where Liam stood, the door to his locker open as he absentmindedly stuffed books inside.

I shook my head. “No.” She had been trying to get us to talk to each other all week; all her devious plans failing. She’d even recruited the help of Hayden. To my surprise he had been 100% on board. He even took the initiative to talk to Liam personally, which must have been awkward since they haven’t spoken since their falling out last year.

“C’mon!” She threw her hands up in the air, garnering a few stares in our direction. “You’re miserable. He’s miserable. Why don’t you just explain? It’s easy.”

I shut my locker door in resignation and shouldered my bag, walking towards the exit. Gemma followed me and we began to make the familiar path to her house for our usual Friday movie night. But in light of Hayden’s absence (due to a weekend trip to Montgomery with his parents), movie night was turning into girl’s night. We hadn’t had a sleepover for a couple of months and I was in dire need of one. I couldn’t wait to drown myself in Ben & Jerry’s and watch sappy sad romantic movies that broke my heart.

Yeah. It was definitely going to be one of those nights.

“Gem, it’s not that easy,” I signed. I felt like a broken record saying the same thing over and over again, but Gemma wouldn’t listen. She believed that it was easy and that I was the one making it complicated and difficult.

“You’re the first person who’s really cared about him in a long time,” she said quietly. I was taken aback, physically halting mid-step in the middle of the road. A car honked and I sprinted, getting out of the way before I was flattened into a pancake. The driver rolled down her window and yelled some vulgar profanity that I did not wish to repeat as she sped away.

“What did you say?” I asked, breathless.

“You heard me,” was all she said.

We walked the remainder of the way in silence, her words churning in my head. Was I really the first person who cared about him in a long time? Didn’t he have Collin? He hadn’t been completely alone since our abrupt friendship ended that long ago summer. I doubted that Collin didn’t care about Liam. They were best friends like Gemma and I. Weren’t boys’ friendships the same as girls’?

This was obviously way too complicated for my feeble mind.

“Gem?” I asked as we headed to her room. We dumped our school bags haphazardly on the floor and flopped down on our usual spots: Me on the purple bean bag chair and her on the bed.