"Say what now?" I said, not believing what he had said. I didn't get it. He said he did it because of me. How the heck did he do it because of me? Ditching me to be popular? That did not benefit me in any way! Did I drive him to do it? What?
He clenched his hands together and took a deep breath. He took his time explaining it to me.
"You see, Nick," his tone was that of exasperation. "This is exactly why I couldn't tell you. All those hints. All that reluctance. You never noticed?"
I looked at him like he was crazy. What was he talking about?
He sighed. "Forget this. I'm going to try to explain everything, but you gotta hear me out, okay?"
I nodded and gestured for him to continue.
"Okay. This is really hard for me to say, but....you know I've been....well, I guess you could say....crushing? On you."
"What?" I literally yelled.
He flinched slightly and scratched his head. He then brought down his palm onto his face and groaned.
"That's what I was afraid of. Nicole. I've been crushing on you for like the longest time ever. I've been hinting at it here and there, but you never seemed to notice."
I was genuinely confused. How did he do it? I never got any hints. He was Joey. I never noticed him being different or anything like that around me. Aren't you supposed to try to impress your crush? Joey never even tried.
"Don't give me that look," he sighed. "You're so oblivious. I'm gonna tell you everything right here and right now. If you don't like it, then we can forget about it in the morning and pretend I was drunk or something."
"I don't know if I can forget this," I said, millions of thoughts running through my head. Most of them were about how I didn't notice things. I really couldn't remember anything that told me that Joey liked me. Aside from being my best friend, of course.
"Yeah. Probably not. Point is, I don't want to ruin this relationship. We can't just throw away a decade's worth of friendship out the window. More than a decade."
I had to laugh at that. I didn't mean to, but considering that he ditched me for his new friends, well, it was hilarious that he would tell me not to do it.
"I know what you're thinking," he continued. "I abandoned you to become popular. That's where you're wrong. You know I feel horrible about leaving you behind, but when I thought I was going to be a," he cleared his throat, "'bad boy,' I grasped the opportunity."
"Okay," I said. "But what does that have to do with me? Aside from ditching me, of course."
Oops. I immediately regretted saying that. I saw a flash of guilt in his eyes and I knew I had only made it worse for him to tell me.
"Yeah. I get why you think that. Here's the thing. I had two reasons for doing it. One, I thought if I joined the 'popular' group, I might get over this crush and not ruin our friendship. You know, 'cause I get to hook up with some hot chicks. Get my mind off you."
I nodded and refrained from saying anything in fear of ruining his mood even further. It made sense. It sure sounded like a Joey thing to do.
"And two....was a more selfish reason, I guess you could say. In case you didn't know, which you probably don't, I began to crush on you since middle school. After you started dating...." I knew who he was talking about. He was reluctant to say that bastard's name.
"Anyway, I think that's when I realized it. I got....jealous. Yeah. Jealous. I hated him from the moment you told me how much you liked him. I thought he was everything you wanted in a guy. Badass, motorcycle, popular, having not a care in the world. I guess I thought of him as a rival. When you broke up with him...."
Joey clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles white from how hard he was holding them. I unconsciously placed my hand on his and he relaxed.
"Trust me when I say this: I felt your hurt. It killed me to see you like that. But, when you broke up with him, no matter how devastated you were, a small part of me felt glad. I tried to suppress it, telling myself that you were hurt bad, but I just couldn't help but feel satisfied when you finally broke up with him."
I winced slightly, not at all expecting him to have done that. I understood what he was saying. I knew how he felt. I wanted to rip off the heads of all the girls that flocked Paul, so I could only imagine what he was going through whenever I was talking about him. But I couldn't help but feel slightly betrayed.
He was satisfied with my hurt.
I shook the thought away immediately. No way was I going to get angry at him for that. How could I blame him? It still nagged me at the back of my mind, but I ignored it.
"You're not....mad, are you?" He asked warily, as if I'd explode at any moment.
I shook my head. "Just continue. I can deal with my emotions after."
He hesitantly nodded and continued.
"When I found out you still liked him, I got angry. Like blood-boiling angry. The kind of anger when all you see is red. I never hated someone so much in my whole life. I went up to him and told him to leave you alone. He fought back. He had a big build. Beat me to a pulp."
"You mean the time when you were hospitalized?" I gasped as realization dawned on me. "You said it was a bicycle accident."
"Yeah...."
Coming to think of it, I did wonder why his face was all messed up while his arms and legs were just fine.
"But don't worry. Trey handled him very well. He made sure that jerk never talked to me or you again."
"I'm sure he did," I rolled my eyes at the thought. "He's Trey."
Joey smiled slightly, and I was glad to have lightened his mood, even a little.
"Yep. You're brother is pretty awesome."
"That's when he's not your brother," I said flatly. "When you have Trey Peterson as your brother, be prepared to have a lot of bossing around and a lot of restrictions. Seriously, he's worse than my mom."
Joey laughed. "Yeah, well, someone needs to be the father of the family, right?"
Normally, I would have found that insensitive, but right now, I couldn't agree more. Without Trey, I probably would have become like Sophie. I do pity her sometimes. Having to use her looks to be popular with people and all, instead of actually trying to make friends.
"Right," I said. "So, basically, all those times you did something stupid, it was because of me. Gosh, I feel bad now."
Joey shook his head. "It's not your fault, really. I just couldn't help myself. I am really stupid, aren't I? Wait. Don't answer that."
I smiled evilly. "Yep. I couldn't agree more."
Joey groaned and ruffled my hair. "What am I going to do with you?"
I laughed. "You feed me, clothe me, give me shelter, and become my slave."
"Ugh. I would never...." Then he smiled. Uh oh. "Actually, I don't think that's such a bad idea. I feed you. Then," with a wiggle of eyebrows he smirked, "I clothe you. Which means I get to see you in your pretty birthday suit."
I flushed. "On second thought--"
"Ooh, an after I become your slave," he interrupted, "you can leave the bathing to me. I can clean you up in no time. And all you have to do is relax. Isn't that great?"
I punched his shoulder. "Shut up, you perv! We're getting off topic."
His expression darken. "Yeah. Right."
"So," I said softly. "You mind telling me why you decided to leave me?"
He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a deep, deep breath.
"Alright. Since you are Nicole Peterson, I guess I have to tell you everything. Otherwise you'll never know or figure it out by yourself."
I rolled my eyes, but let him continue.
"I thought coming here was the perfect chance to make a move. I thought that if I was like Paul, I would impress you....and make you fall in love with me. Selfish, I know. But before that, I wanted to get rid of these feelings because you know how it goes. You love those sappy romance stuff and I can't help but know everything about them. Best friends fall in love, ruins their relationship, becomes heartbroken and sad, they never see each other again, and so on."
"Actually--"
"Yeah, yeah. I may have missed the point there, but what I'm saying is that every time someone falls for their best friend, it seems like they always ruin the relationship. Either the oblivious one becomes uncomfortable and pushes his or her best friend away or they get together but never go far on their relationship. So I either wanted to come back to you when I knew for sure I wasn't in love with you or that you would look at me differently. Like as a guy. That's part of the reason why I wanted to keep it a secret that you and I were best friends. I guess I thought keeping it a secret would make it go away and I'd actually have a chance. I thought if I changed, I would be a different person, and this best friend obstacle would just go away. More like hope. I was hoping for it."
Wow. I never knew Joey thought this through. I always thought he acted on impulse, but he had his own plans for everything that happened.
"What made you reveal it to everyone? We only have one more year, so why'd you tell everyone?"
He shook his head shamefully.
"I was getting impatient. Desperate, even. I realized that all I was doing was pushing you away. You don't know how hard it was to suppress the urge to just go up to you and be your best friend again. Or how much I wanted to just be around you again. I missed you so much. And when you got mad at me that day. At my house. About me abandoning you, I realized I was only hurting you. That's not what I wanted at all. And the only way I could think of revealing it was to get drunk. Stupid move."
"Wow," I said. "Just, wow. How could I be so oblivious? Are you sure you didn't hide it? I never even thought you....you know, liked me."
It all made sense now. So much that I was amazed at how I missed it. I've known Joey all my life, but I never even thought about the possibility of becoming something more than a friend. It all came back to me. His notes. His desperation to win. His sudden departure. All the clues were now blatantly obvious.
And here I was blaming the others for 'stealing' him when it was all because of me that he left in first place.
"Well, we are talking about you. The one and only Nicole Peterson--the most oblivious person on earth. Clumsy, too."
"Yeah. Har har," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.
We fell silent. Tension was building up in the air and I knew that Joey was anticipating my response. I didn't want to ruin our relationship. I really didn't. But things just got so much more complicated. I was supposed to end this game. I wanted to go back to the way things were. Now I knew that would be impossible. Everyone knew Joey was my best friend now. I would still probably be approached by anyone who had a crush on him. The others would still be my friends....I think. It wasn't fair for them to be chasing me around when I obviously refused to fall for them. They had their own lives to think about.
And then there was Joey's confession. What was I supposed to do now? Did I like him back? My emotions were so jumbled up, I was confused. And then there's that annoying project I had to finish.
Ugh! Why was everything so complicated? I didn't want to hurt him, but I really wasn't looking for a relationship right now. I didn't even know if I liked him or not.
"Look, Joey," I paused to gather my thoughts. "I don't want our friendship to go down the drain. I really don't. It's just that this is a lot to take in, you know? Like, I've never even thought about something like this happening. Well, maybe I did, but I never thought it would actually happen. I just never knew about it before and I just feel so confused. We can still hang out. Be best friends and all, but I need to time to think about all this."
Joey let out a sigh. Of relief or disappointment, I didn't know.
"Yeah. Of course you do. I mean, this is something big. It's not just a simple matter."
I nodded. "And Joey? I'm going to call off this game. No more chasing me around. You guys have your own lives to think about. No one has time for a wild goose chase."
He smiled. "Yeah. The others refused to listen to me, but maybe you can knock some sense into them."
"Yep," I grinned. "And if it doesn't work, I always have a big brother who can take care of it."
Joey laughed. "Yep. You sure do. Good ol' Trey will scare the hell out them. 'Specially since he's a cop now. I'll bet they'll stay away when he's around."
"Yeah. Probably."
I sighed and looked at the sky. The waning moon was nearly full. I found myself wishing that my life wasn't so complicated. I wished I could go back to being stressed about college instead of caring about those boys. I wished I could go back to not caring about any of them. It would make things a whole lot easier. Now, I would jump at the chance to help them. They were nice....well, nicer than I previously thought and we're really good friends, but I hated how complicated things got with them. I just wanted my old life back.
But one thing was for sure....
Things would never be the same as before, no matter how much I wished it would.