Until We Meet Again

13. crush

Within the next week, we're already meeting up at the diner. It's our spot now. The setting around me is very familiar at this point, but it feels like a new experience to be here with her.

Somehow the dull grey skies outside don't seem so bad when I'm with her. I'm not focused on the small sections of fabric ripped off the seats below us or the faltering lights above us. I'm looking at the sparkling countertops that have been made so clean for the customers and the employee mopping the now shiny floors around us.

The food is delicious, and I enjoy it more with Delilah's company. One person can make a huge difference.

She's currently making jokes about my lack of a love life, but that's only because the only people I mentioned are guys from early high school. They're stuck at least three years in the past, and she might be gone by 300 for assuming I'm automatically into men. Or maybe I am for not correcting her and going along with it.

And then she tells me, "my ex-girlfriend never liked this kind of stuff." She motions at the diner around her and indicates the casual setting is what she's talking about, adding, "she only ever liked action and drama."

And I stare at her for what must feel like 10 seconds. I can't believe this, I don't know what to say.

I might be the one that's stuck in a time period from 300 years ago for being so surprised.

"Wow, are you seriously going to come out as homophobic right now?" She asks me with an immensely disappointed yet sarcastic frown on her face.

"No! I'm just surprised — I'm a lesbian, I'm not homophobic."

"Oh, I suspected that. You were always staring at me back then," she says with a familiar giggle.

"What?" I ask her right away, and I can instantly feel my face getting warm which is terribly embarrassing.

"I'm joking!"

But I don't feel very relieved when she says that. She always had a talent for seeing right through me. I guess I wouldn't be shocked if she somehow knew, but I hope that she didn't. And doesn't.

Things are better when secrets like that are kept away. Or, things will always at least appear to be better that way.

"So, you've dated a lot of people?" I ask her very casually as I try not to stumble over my words.

"I dated like two guys when I thought I was straight and a few girls when I realized I was gay," she tells me, with the same yet real nonchalant tone that I've been trying to fake. "And you?"

"Same as you," I say to her.

She seems surprised, which bothers me. Do I not seem like I would date anyone? Do I seem like I keep to myself and never talk to people?

"What?" I ask her, and I admit I let some rude hints of annoyance come out in my voice.

"Nothing, I just remember you always saying that dating was gross and you hated the thought of romance," she says with a grin present on her face.

"I was 13! Did any of us ever say anything we actually meant when we were that young?" I tell her.

And, I was in love with you. The only person I wanted to date in that moment was you.

Not like I'll ever say anything like that to her though. I guess even at an older age, we will still have trouble saying what we actually want to convey.

"So, how is that place now? Home?"

"It's the same as it always was. I don't know what happened to your old house though, I stopped passing by after a while."

It's hard to hide my true emotions about her leaving once again.

"Don't do that," she tells me, with a sudden sour look on her face.

"Do what? You're the one that couldn't bother leaving a phone number."

"I don't have anything to say to that," she says.

"Do you ever?" I question with the most sarcasm I can come up with.

"Come on. Don't do that."

"Don't do what?"

"Act like you're so much better than me."

I let out a small laugh before saying, "you always used to act like that toward me."

"Well, I don't really like it when you're determined to manipulate me."

"How am I even manipulating you? By reminding you that you abandoning our friendship sucked?"

"At some point you have to move on," she tells me as if it's an accepted and proven fact. Which, it is but it doesn't mean I have to hear it from her.

"I did. And then you stole the picture from my locket and ran when I saw you."

"I'm sorry," she says suddenly, changing the tense pace of our conversation. "I was going to talk to you as soon as I spotted you that one time at the diner, but it became real. You were. . . There, and I was also there. You have to understand how hard it was to just come up to a person you used to know and then try to make conversation."

"I know that I couldn't have done it," I tell her, trying to give her some kind of break from my frustration. "You were brave I guess."

I'm trying to forgive her, but I don't know if I'm doing it for her or for me.

She smiles at that, and then says, "you still look the same. Even more pretty though, obviously."

She announces that with such confidence that I'm having trouble believing how anything else could ever be true.

One statement and she's already changing my mind about her, making me melt inside and blush like a lovesick loser. "Thank you," I decide to tell her.

All it takes are a few words for everything to change. But when I look at her, I feel like she's just trying to be friendly.

So we'll be friends.

Best gal pals. That's us.