those years between us

[29] OFF THE RECORD

OR MAYBE IT was time to take my first steps towards him.

Albeit, I'd already taken many, but I'd already stopped a while ago. I think I'd stopped taking steps forward once I'd come here to Redchester. Or earlier than that, maybe, when he'd graduated, contenting myself to watching from a distance.

But he was walking towards me now, so why didn't I do the same and meet him in the in-between?

It was with that mindset I dropped him a text that night.

Are you free any day next week?

He replied so fast I wasn't sure how to react. Don't have lessons on Thursday. And I'm free Tuesday afternoons. And basically every evening.

I chewed on my bottom lip, trying my best to word this without it being too... obvious. I found a new Chinese restaurant like twenty mins away, wanna go with me one night?

More than happy to. Are you free on Wednesday?

Wednesday night? I squeezed my eyes shut, running through my schedule. Yes. I'm free. I'll come to yours at six?

Sounds good.

And that was that. I let out a huge sigh of relief, tossing my phone to the side, flopping onto my bed. My god, what was I doing? But it didn't feel wrong. It felt quite right, in fact, what I was doing now.

Like I should have done this a long time ago.

I sighed.

Maybe this could be it? All these years? What kind of ending would make it up to these thirteen years?

What kind of ending could live up to this long path?

I couldn't even think of one, in all honesty, that would live up to all my expectations. But perhaps the process was more important than the ending. Perhaps the process was what I would remember after years and years, rather than how it all ended up.

It was time to be brave.

If Cami was here right now she might scream at me. She'd also be pleased, because I was finally doing something about all of this rather than let it stew.

I would tell her tomorrow. It was a bit too late for that now.

That, and I wanted to postpone the screaming as much as humanly possible. I was trying to sleep, and it wouldn't really help. It was likely to have the opposite effect. Perhaps I ought to put on some ASMR and turn my phone to Do Not Disturb mode so that I had an excuse to finally turn off the light and sleep.

I woke up the next morning feeling... relieved. Far more relieved than I'd been in the past while, as if a massive stone had been lifted.

I was going to say yes, right?

I'd made up my mind.

And I wasn't someone who changed my mind easily once that happened. I stuck with the same thing the whole way through. That was how I worked.

I didn't know how this was going to end up. But even if it ended disastrously, even if it all fell apart in the end, I think we were both mature enough to deal with it. We were both enough to deal with the consequences even if it all splintered into little pieces. We'd known each other for so long.

But I loved him.

Ever since that first time I'd met him when I was five.

No one else.

And I hoped that, sometime along the past while, or perhaps in the future, I'd become, or will become that for him too.

But if it didn't, I rather thought I'd be alright. I'd be sad, but I'd move on. If it didn't work out in the end, maybe the knowledge that I'd at least given it my best try would be enough for me to finally forget about him.