Page 98 of Best Friends for Never

If my best friend weren’t leaving for LA tomorrow to try to become an actor, I’d tell him how I really felt, but I can’t do that because heisleaving, and it sucks.

I’m happy for him. I really am. I want to see him get everything he wants out of life, but I’m also sad to lose my best friend and the boy I’ve loved for the last year.

I don’t know exactly when it happened or how I knew, but one day I looked at Noel and thought,I could love him.

Then I realized I alreadydidlove him, and it wasn’t just like a friend loves another friend. It was more.

The thought scared me so much I didn’t talk to him for three days. When he asked why I was hiding from him, I blamed it on my period. He was either too embarrassed to ask more about it or bought it completely because we never spoke about it again. It was the longest we’d gone without talking since he went to camp when he was twelve, but even then, he left early because he hated being away from me—something he didn’t tell me until long after.

It was like that with us. We were inseparable. Best friends. But that’s all we were. All we were supposed to be. Then I messed it up by falling in love with him.

He snuck up on me, and suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about him in ways I never had before. Like how tall he was getting and how much I liked that he towered over me. Or how pretty his eyes were, framed by his dark lashes, and how it was my favorite thing in the world when they were trained on me. Or how his laugh was infectious, and I’d give anything to hear it. Everything about him made my body feel like it was on fire, and it’s been so, so hard to ignore.

I think I’ve done a good job hiding my feelings. I don’t think Noel suspects a thing—or, at least, Ihopehe doesn’t. That would be embarrassing.

“I’ll miss you too,” he says quietly.

His pinkie brushes against mine, and I don’t think much of it. We’ve always been that way with one another. But then he does it again. And again.

It’s getting to be too much to ignore.

I glance over at him, but he’s not looking at me. He’s looking at where our hands meet, his eyebrows turned inward in concentration.

He’s quiet. Something’s up.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

“It’s . . . nothing.”

“Come on.” I bump my shoulder against his. “You can tell me.”

“I . . . I really can’t.”

Now it’s me drawing my brows together. “Why not? I thought we were best friends. We’re supposed to tell each other everything.”

I know how hypocritical I’m being right now, but my secret is different. That’s the kind of secret that can ruin friendships, not strengthen them.

“I’m going to miss you.”

“I know. You just said that.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I’mreallygoing to miss you, Peter.”

“I’mreallygoing to miss you, too, Noel.”

He sighs. “You’re not getting it.”

I tip my head. “I guess I’m not.”

“It’s just ...” Suddenly, he shoves to his feet and begins pacing the stage, back and forth and back again.

He does it countless times, running his hand through his hair every time he turns.

I’m about to ask him what’s going on when he stops, looking right at me with his hands on his hips. “You know I care about you, right?”

I rise to my feet, dusting off the back of my jeans. “I know. I care about you too.”

His lips pull up into a sad smile. “Not like I care about you.”

---