“Anamaria…”

Claire was looking me in the eyes, intently. I couldn’t avoid her gaze this time, our eyes meeting and leaving me at a loss for words. It was nighttime already, and we stood together alone in the middle of the school grounds with nothing but the starry sky above us. It would have been romantic, if not for the awful awkward mess that was our relationship.

I averted my gaze.

“I’ve been avoiding you,” I told her. “I’m sorry.”

“You have?” she said, surprised. “I’ve been really busy these last weeks, so I guess I’m partly to blame, since I never went looking for you. But I really want to talk to you.”

I nodded. “I know. I kissed you.”

“Do you regret it?”

I shook my head. “No.”

She smiled at me. Oh, please Claire, don’t smile like that, it makes my heart ache.

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” she said. “You… surprised me. I wasn’t… I guess I hadn’t been thinking about you that way until you did that.”

A sharp pain pierced my chest. So I had gotten it wrong, after all. Claire really did just want me as a friend, and I was just misreading the signals. God, I feel so ashamed. I’m sure that must have put a strain on Claire’s relationship with Myu. Even if Myu herself had been cheating on Claire, that was their relationship, not mine. I really had no right to intrude.

Suddenly, I realized what must be done, and that realization was like a bucket of cold water pouring into my soul.

“I’m sorry,” I told Claire. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. It was a mistake, my mistake. I disrespected you. I can’t ask you to forget what happened, but can we please put it past us, for now? I don’t want to cause you any trouble, and for once in my life I feel like I should just do the right thing, and I believe the right thing is this… Claire, can you please not be friends with me anymore? At least… for the time being…”

I stopped talking, and breathed deeply. I couldn’t believe I had just said all of that. Then I realized I hadn’t been looking at Claire while saying it. But when I went and looked into her eyes, I saw there were tears on her eyes. Oh god. I hadn’t expected that reaction from her.

“Of course,” she said, fighting back the tears. “Sure. I mean… it’s best like this right?” Tears started rolling down her cheeks. Suddenly, I felt like the biggest jerk in the planet. How could I make that gentle, joyful girl cry? How could I make the girl I love cry?

Claire took a step back.

“So… I guess… I’ll see you around?” She started sobbing. I was at a loss. I knew I was doing the right thing. So why was I feeling so guilty and miserable?

“Claire…” I began calling her name, almost ready to go back on my words, but she didn’t let me. She just shook her head, turned around and ran.

Alone under the moonlight, I too began to cry.

“Stupid curse,” I told myself, out of habit.

–

I found the girls at our usual table in the refectory room. Agatha waved at me when I walked straight toward them, not even caring to pick up a food tray from the cafeteria buffet. I wasn’t hungry. Not after what just happened. I couldn’t force myself to eat even if my life depended on it.

Neither of the three had a food tray with them either, which told me they had probably already eaten and were just waiting for me. Sam too. She was with Agatha and Ruth, sitting with her back to me as I walked up to their table. She turned around, and when she saw me, and my puffy cried-my-eyes-out face, she did something I’d never expected her to.

“Shit,” said Sam, getting up from her seat. She ran toward me like that was a matter of life and death, and embraced me in a tight hug, right in the middle of the cafeteria, without a care in the world.

All that time she’d been ignoring me, and just from seeing my sad face suddenly she’s hugging me and… and caring about me. I had thought I’d ran out of tears back at the school grounds, but this got me crying all over again.

“Shhh…” said Sam, patting my back, not letting go of our embrace for a single moment. “It’s okay…” she told me. “Whatever it is, it’s okay… I’m here for you…”

“We all are,” said Ruth, standing near us. She had her trademark, calm, level-headed look on her face, and was staring at me with an empathetic smile on her lips, showing me, in her own way, that she cared too.

“Yep,” said Agatha, coming in to hug me as well. “We’ll always be here for our friends. You’re one of us.”

I thanked Agatha, after we hugged, and wiped the tears from my eyes with the sleeve of my blouse.

Ruth cleared her throat. “Ahr-ham.”

We all looked at her. She was looking at Agatha.

“Say, Agatha, why don’t we let Sammy and Ana talk to each other for a little bit?”

“Eh?!” Agatha was surprised at her suggestion. “But why?”

“Because,” said Ruth, simply, before dragging Ruth out of the refectory room.

“Sleepover tonight!” Agatha yelled at us, as she was being towed outside of the room. That made me a bit embarrassed, since there were actually a few curious students looking at us.

“So…” said Sam, “wanna go some place quieter? So you can tell me about whatever got you so sad?”

I nodded.

Sam and I walked away from the cafeteria and back onto the school grounds, in silence. She had her arm around my body all the way, holding me close, showing me she was there for me and wouldn’t let me go. That’s how I saw Sam. As someone who would never let you go.

Once we walked into one of the dorms building, curiosity got the best of me.

“Sam, where are we going?”

“My room,” she said, simply.

I didn’t question her any further. We went up to the second floor and walked down the corridor until she stopped with me before a wooden door. Sam opened the door to let me in.

Sam’s dorm room looked even narrower than mine. It was barely large enough for her bed, she’d had her clothes and other belongings all piled onto shelves on the wall.

We sat on the bed, facing each other. Sam got a bottle of water from behind her bed and filled me a cup. I was grateful for it, crying so much had actually made me thirsty.

“Want some more?” she asked, as I gave her back the empty glass. I shook my head.

“I’m good,” I said.

“So… what’s bugging you, Ann?”

I took a deep breath.

“I talked to Claire. To… fix the mess between us.”

Sam nodded, slowly, and I could see concern in her eyes.

“Well… I told her it was a mistake. That I shouldn’t have done it to her, and that we had to put it past us.” I felt miserable while telling Sam this, but I guess I had no more tears to cry, and it was really a huge relief to actually talk about this with someone. Particularly when that someone was my best friend. That’s what she was to me. If I ever had a best friend in my life, that person was Sam.

“Did she hurt you?” Sam asked me. “Did… she say anything bad to you? Or done something to you?”

“No… she…” she started crying and ran away, I thought. felt ashamed just thinking about it, thinking about how I could have hurt that girl so much. I couldn’t tell this to Sam just yet. “She said it was for the best.”

Sam smiled at me, took a loose strand of hair from my forehead and tucked it behind my left ear.

“I’m proud of you,” she said. “You faced your problems, like a mature woman.”

“I’m afraid that I might have done the wrong thing.”

“Ann… dear…” Sam came closer to me, and placed her hand on my shoulder. “Did you see any future in the relationship you had with Claire?”

I stood still for a bit. I didn’t even have to think about that, it was something I knew the answer to, even if I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I shook my head, just a little bit.

“No.”

“Well,” said Sam. “Then you did the right thing.”

I took a deep breath, still unsure. Seeing Claire cry and run away had messed up with my heart in ways that I never thought it would.

“Thanks,” I told Sam, feeling miserable nonetheless.

“Come here,” she said, folding her legs. “Lay down.”

I looked at her, surprised. She seemed to be serious about it. I’d never laid down on someone’s lap before. Still, I’ve never had a best friend, so I guess that’s to be expected. Carefully, I laid down on the bed, resting my head on Sam’s legs. She gently began to stroke my hair.

“I thought you were mad at me,” I told her.

“I was,” Sam admitted it, with a gentle tone.

“Then why did you hug me? On the cafeteria?”

“I had to, Ann. You looked like you had been crying. Was I right?”

I nodded. “Still, you weren’t talking to me, before that.”

“Well…” it felt good to have my hair caressed in such a way. “I guess I care about you too much to stay mad when you need me.”

“You really care about me so much?”

“Of course I do,” she confirmed, with a soft voice, stroking my hair so gently that somehow she managed to take all the pain away from me. That felt so good, and I was so tired, that at some point I couldn’t help but fall asleep.