Page 34 of Hitting the Goal Line
I take a deep breath. “Not the action of it, no. I’m happy you were my first. It’s just everything that comes afterwards that I’m feeling that I will regret.”
Blake nods in understanding. “I get that. Like where do we go from here. Are we still friends or are we a more type of thing?”
“Yeah, I don’t want what happened last night to be the reason I lose my best friend,” I say, my voice breaking a bit in the process.
“It won’t. You won’t lose me,” he says, coming closer to me and placing a hand on mine.
“We had sex, Blake. That changes things.”
“It doesn’t have to.” He squeezes my hand, and I try my hardest not to get lost in his icy blues.
“So, how do you suggest we handle this then?” I ask because I can’t come up with anything.
My best friend looks at me for a solid minute. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t even open his mouth so that words could come out. He just looks me.
I see the conflict in his eyes. I see that he is battling with himself with this. He is trying to find the right thing to say, because he also knows that the promise he gave last night was a lie. We both now it.
“We don’t have to do anything. We can let this be one night where we both needed each other, where we wanted to feel closer to one another. We can just have this one night and go back to how things were before yesterday. We don’t have to ruinanything. We don’t have to make it more. We can just let it be and continue with how we were going.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
It sounds so simple, not doing anything.
Like we can just forget and move on and still act like our normal selves.
As I sit here, on the bed that we had sex on a few hours ago and feel the ache between my legs, I realize something. I’m in love with Blake and I’ve probably been for years. Since I was fifteen and he gave me my locket. My crush on him is more than a crush. It always has been and it always will be.
Last night meant the absolute world to me and I don’t want to forget it. I want to remember it for years to come. It’s my favorite night that we’ve had together.
And as much as I want to tell him that wecando something, that wecansee where this thing between us could go, because we both have an attraction to each other and think that the other is special beyond belief, I can’t.
If things don’t work out between us, I will lose him for sure and I will never be able to handle that. If I lose him as my friend, I will never be able to talk to him again. I will never be able to cheer him on at his hockey games, I will never be able to be there for him when he needs me, when his dad decides to insert himself in his life again. I will lose all of those things and more.
I don’t want that. I don’t want any of that.
So I give him nod.
“Okay,” I say, feeling my heart break as I do. “Let’s not do anything.”
My chest feels like it wants to rip me from the inside out, but I ignore it.
This is for the best.
Even if it hurts me, I will rather have Blake in my life in this capacity than not at all.
“Okay,” Blake says, giving my hand a squeeze.
We sit like that for a few minutes. In silence, and looking at each other, possibly trying to figure out what the other is thinking. We could ask, but I think that we both need a few minutes where we don’t share what we are currently feeling.
Eventually, we head downstairs and start looking around the kitchen for something to eat.
In a few hours, the day is going to become even bigger than it already is. Blake may get drafted today and it will change his life forever. So I try to put all my concentration on that versus our conversation up in my bedroom or our night together.
As we’re eating cereal at the kitchen table, the door to the mud room opens up and my parents walk in. They’re all smiles, but my dad’s smile quickly disappears when he notices Blake and the bruising on his face.
“What the actual fuck happened to your face?!” He roars out.
