A/N: Don't forget to comment and vote! Here's the Chapter Aesthetic for Simon and Paige's trip to Boston! Next update TBA.
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The crowds continued to ignore us, oblivious to the devastation that was occurring in this tiny corner of the world. His tears were real though, and it was turning my organs over one by one. The short row of chairs that I had just been sitting on with Liz were now what separated us.
When Simon had told me that he was with a Kristina a couple of seconds ago, he sounded as though that was the only thing stopping him from talking about this. That somehow, somewhere, our relationship had changed for him too.
He just stood there, his shoulders rocking as I heard his sharp intake of breath.
"You weren't supposed to find out like that, Simon. You weren't supposed to find out at all actually—"
Suddenly his body was in front of me. He had climbed over the chairs like he would a set of stairs, ignoring the weird looks it attracted. I stared up into his eyes, pain swirling in the depths of them, and all I wanted was to comfort him. To be there for my best friend.
But then, once again, my hormones took over and the only thing that my mind could focus on was how close I was to his chest, how even the slightest movement would have me within his grasp. I could feel the heat radiating from his body, I could feel his breath against my cheek as his tears disappeared and left a struggle in their wake. His hands kept twitching at his sides, as though he too wanted to just reach out and touch me.
"How could you do this? We're friends Paige. We're never going to be anything else," he burst, his voice filling the space around us. I shook my head and suddenly felt terribly small. I guess I was wrong about what I thought I heard before.
"I kn...I know that. I didn't mean...I never wanted to hurt you," I stuttered, tears of my own threatening my vision. Pain was etched into his features, every word that left his mouth coated in it. I wanted to turn back time. I had barely started to understand this myself, let alone prepared myself to confront Simon with it. I felt like I was throwing him into a battle that wasn't his. My mind struggled to grasp onto something, any form of reason, any idea of what to do next.
So my mind gave up reason. I stepped forward, into the safety of his arms, and touched my hand softly to his cheek. His mouth opened on a word, but I stopped it by reaching his eyes with my own. There was a war there, but one side had clearly won. I leaned forward and brushed my lips against his, softer than a breath.
When I was little, my grandma told me that while I was crawling around the house, I started playing with an outlet. She caught me just in time for me to zap my finger. My finger was sore for a couple of days.
Electric is the only thing that I could compare to this simple peck. Though it was over before I could even blink my eyes once, that brush of our lips had set fire to every nerve in my body. If I had stood there a moment longer, my body's need to be close to his would have taken over and I would have touched him, pulled him closer still.
But he ended it, and the feeling in my stomach that he left was much different.
"Paige..."
"I'm so sorry...I didn't mean to—"
"We're best friends Paige. You can't go around kissing whoever you want, even if you think you have feelings for me," he laughed. I never knew one sentence could hold so much power. It honestly felt like he had just reached down my throat and ripped my heart out of my chest.
I stuttered, struggling to find the words to fix this. To convince him that I wasn't just having a mental breakdown. "I—I don't think I have feelings for you Simon. Something changed for me, and I'm sorry that you found out like this, but you can't seriously be telling me that everything's the same."
So it turns out my mouth can run on autopilot. I had no idea what I was saying, or where I had found the strength to say it, but I just thanked god that I hadn't dug myself a bigger hole.
Simon scoffed right in my face, running his fingers through his hair. People still paid no attention to us, and I was grateful because I don't think I could have handled this situation under the eyes of strangers. Neither of us made any move to create space between us, but that burning need to be in his arms was replaced by a drive to fix this.
"You—you're—you were with Jared, Paige. I could never, ever do something like that to my best friend. And you're the one who constantly reminded me of Kristina these past few days. Listen to yourself," he pointed out, his arms flailing wildly around us. I flinched at each word, his voice my own personal attack.
"I know. I'm sorry—"
"I didn't need this right now, Paige. I needed you to be my friend," he cut me off, squeezing his eyes shut. He couldn't even look at me. I was going to throw up.
"So you're saying that I'm completely crazy? You're never going to feel the same way?" I whispered. I could admit to myself that I was crazy. But if Simon told me that I was, that's when I would know something was officially wrong with me. But if there was some tiny, tiny part of him that admitted that this didn't have to end the way I thought it would, I could cling onto that for dear life. Right now, I just felt like a was drowning.
"Paige..." he trailed off, his eyes finally meeting mine. There was so much conflict there, so much pain over what I had just thrown at him. But when he brought his hand up to softly caress my cheek, to wipe away the tears that had escaped, I thought for a second that this might not be the end.
But then his touch was gone as soon as it came and I was left in the dark, alone.
"I just can't deal with this right now. There's so, so much more going on right now. But even if I could return the feelings...even if I could admit that the feelings were mutual...I would never do that to Jared."
~~~
That flight may have been the most awkward experience of my life. I was exhausted, Simon was clearly exhausted, but neither of us wanted to sleep. I had no idea why he stayed awake the entire eight hours, but I was scared of having another dream and saying his name in my sleep.
My body felt numb; I walked onto the plane in a daze, and when the stewardess walked past to offer a towel, I nearly ignored her. Somehow, Simon was acting as though our lives hadn't just taken one of the biggest u-turns ever. His words were scorched into my brain, playing on repeat the entire flight.
Even if I could admit that the feelings were mutual.
Was he saying that the feelings were in fact mutual, but saying them out loud would be a crime against the boy who's been sleeping with his girlfriend behind his back? But there was no way in hell I was telling him that now—he would definitely think that I was only telling him so that he would admit his feelings out of anger.
And I couldn't do that to him. If he was ever going to admit anything, if he was ever going to tell me that I wasn't crazy, I wanted him to do it out of love. Or at least not out of anger.
So for more than eight hours, we sat next to each other staring straight ahead. He tried to speak to me a couple of times, but when I even tried to form words, they got stuck in my throat on the tears that wouldn't stop stinging my eyes.
The captain's message ten minutes before landing was a blessing. I turned my phone on after we had pulled up the gate and I prepared myself for the assault of messages from Moira and Ashlee, but when my phone only chimed once, I assumed that Ashlee had restrained her. They were going to love it when they found out Simon had overheard exactly what I had told them.
"Can I borrow your phone for a second? Mine is dead, I just wanna text my dad," Simon murmured, his eyes soft and pleading. He knew he had hurt me, basically hit me over the head with my own feelings. Good—I hoped he felt guilty.
I nodded and handed him the phone, climbing past him to grab our stuff from the overhead bins. We were allowed to get off first—another first class amenity—so I stood there confused when Simon remained in his seat. He was staring at my phone like it had a picture of a dead puppy on it, an entire army of emotions washing over his features.
"Did you get a hold of your dad? Is he okay?" I asked, pulling on his arm to get him out of his chair. The people behind us were getting frustrated, just wanting to get off of the plane. But Simon stayed rooted to his seat. I threw our stuff back into my seat when I realized that he wasn't getting up anytime soon and squeezed back into our row. The people that we had held up started rushing past and knocked me down, forcing me to fall into Simon's lap.
His arms were immediately there to hold me, wrapping around me like it was second nature to him. As much as I wanted to stay here, indulge in the surge of feelings I got when I was this close to him, I knew I was just going to end up getting burned. He would push me away, or he would laugh in my face again. But when I tried to stand up, his grip tightened.
"You kissed Aiden."
It was a statement rather than a question, but the words shocked me nonetheless. My phone—that's what he had been fussing over. I was such an idiot. Aiden probably texted me again asking me to talk about when happened last night, and I had been stupid enough not to check the message before giving my phone to Simon.
And I knew I should care about hurting him, I knew I should be scared about how he was going to react to me lying to him. But all I felt was closed off. Or at least I wanted to be. If Simon couldn't see how much his reaction to finding out I had feelings for him was hurting me, than I shouldn't have to care about how he feels about Aiden.
We aren't together, he made that perfectly clear. I could kiss whoever the hell I wanted.
"Yeah. At the party."
"You told me you didn't see him."
The anger bubbled up in his words and I felt his hold on me shift—he didn't want to be this close to me anymore either. So I twisted until I could stand, cutting someone off in the aisle. I grabbed my things from my seat and started towards the airport without looking back.
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