Outer Limits | ✓

◦ clueless

⠀⠀⠀ "Why? What's wrong with her?"

⠀⠀⠀ "She's ..." Darcy scoffed. "She's every teenage boy's wet dream. D'you know she doesn't have just one but two nose rings? And she does this thing where she actually smiles with her eyes, it's disconcerting.  Also those perfect legs and that face? Sam, she looks like a bloody Instagram model with a posh accent!" Darcy's chest was heaving, by the end of her tirade. "There's nothing wrong with her and that's what's wrong with her."

⠀⠀⠀ A lengthy pause ensued, before, "You know what I think?" He spoke so lowly that Darcy had to lean near him to make out every word. "I think you're the one that has a heartstopping crush."

⠀⠀⠀ Darcy scoffed, snapping her head to her window. Hands already balled in fists, she sneered, "And I think you're the biggest idiot I've ever met. Don't you dare project your raging hard-on for that manic pixie dream girl on me."

⠀⠀⠀ Darcy could hear the note of hysteria in her voice, again. Her emotions had been going haywire these past few months, more so these last few days, and she hated how little control she had over herself lately. It was like she on the outside looking in. Her mouth running on its own accord. She knew he was probably overreacting, but knowing that didn't seem to make a difference to her feelings or in her delivery of them.

⠀⠀⠀ "I wasn't talking about Jo, you dimwit." Sam said, curving down a street. There were five minutes from her place and Darcy couldn't wait to get home, and storm inside her room and hide herself from the world under the sheets of bed.

⠀⠀⠀ "I don't fancy Jude Asher," Darcy murmured, stubbornly.

⠀⠀⠀ Humming, Sam agreed, "Sure."

⠀⠀⠀ Darcy snapped, her brows knit as she shook her head. "I mean it."

⠀⠀⠀ "I believe that you believe that," Sam answered, his tone placating and demure.

⠀⠀⠀ Shaking her head, bitterness etched onto Darcy's features. She felt an ember of a full-blown rage threatening to disparage, but this was her best and only true friend. Where else would truth be told? Her gaze fell to the outside again; she realised with a start that her hands were shaking. Her lips were pursed, her breaths unsteady. Swallowing the lump in his throat, she breathed.

⠀⠀⠀ Sam fixed her with a tight smile. "It's difficult to say, isn't it." Darcy responded with a grim look. "Even if it's me."

⠀⠀⠀ She swallowed the lump in his throat. It wasn't an answer, and they both knew it.

⠀⠀⠀ Sam sighed, turning doleful brown eyes on Darcy. "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours?"

⠀⠀⠀ Folding her arms across her chest, Darcy leaned back in her seat. She pressed her lips together, nodding. "You first."

⠀⠀⠀ Releasing a sigh, Darcy felt the car pull onto the side of the road before it halted. Unprompted, Sam said, "Okay. So it's like this: you've known someone for what feels like forever, right? So long that you have this fixed idea on who they are, what they mean to you ... how you feel about them. Then something horrible happens. Something like... like a meteor strikes you right here — " Darcy's gaze flickered at his free hand falling to his heart and resting there. "And everything changes, nothing is the same. It's that fast, I think. Falling in love with someone. Not knowing you could even love them in that way. It's strange. Scary. Even scarier when you realise there's actually a chance that they feel the same way. It's — "