Love and Loss.

Sixteen.

"Heyy loser."

"Whuddup, weirdo."

She takes the blunt out of his hands, and took a quick puff.

His breath catches in his throat when their hands brush.

"So, what's new?" She takes another puff, hissing out the smoke.

"Nothing."

Except for the fact that I'm in love with you.

He knows, he knows.

Falling in love with your best friend, that's not allowed.

It's the number one rule.

Never, ever, ever, fall in love with your best friend.

Everything changes when you realise that you've fallen for your best friend.

Everything they do, the things that felt so mundane, so platonic before, sends so many tingles down the spine.

"Liar."

For a second, he freezes.

"You're a horrible liar. I'm your best friend. Didn't you think I'd call your lie out?"

That word.

Best friend.

There was a time before when he'd laughed at the affectionate term, and called her back the same thing.

Now?

Now it just hurt, it was a reminder that that's all he'll be to her.

Best friends. Nothing more.

"Here. This'll loosen you up."

She hands him back the blunt, and he stares at it, his heart shattering into pieces.

He breathes it in, and his muscles relax.

He could get used to this. He could just...use weed as a way of escape.

"Don't go smoking it everywhere." She warns, laughter in her words.

He crushes the half-used blunt. Tears blur his vision.

"Hey! Why'd you do that?" Her fingers close around his wrist, and he muffles a sob that rose in his throat.

Her fingers, her touch.

God, it drove him insane, yet, it calmed him down.

"What happened?"

Falling in love with you happened.

"Nothing."

She sighs.

He knows that she knows that he's lying. She always does.

She can call his bluff, even over the phone.

She can sense the tiniest changes in his behaviour.

But she can't sense the fact that he's fallen for her.

He supposes, maybe it is his fault.

He knows falling in love is completely, utterly, undeniably off-limits.

But then his heart goes and breaks that rule.

"Are you...ugh."

His heart stops.

No. She cannot know. She can't know.

It'll ruin everything.

Everything!

"It's fine. I get it, it's a personal problem. I won't pry."

His heart starts again.

If she knows, it'll complicate things.

It'll ruin things.

It'll churn out discord after discord in their already fragile relationship.

He doesn't want to lose her.

Thinking about bracing the world without her, that, that was unthinkable.

As he gazes at her, her eyes drifting closed, he traps his wounded heart in a cage.

I'm in love with you. And I hate it.