“You’re in love with my dad, aren’t you?”

Never had the words of a twelve year-old struck such fear in me.

I wasn’t certain as to whether or not he was joking. He hadn’t sounded like he was joking, nor had his expression in my rearview mirror indicated that he was amused. To be honest, he was looking at me quite seriously.

It was too early in the morning to deal with this. And so, in my shocked state, I swerved my car into the nearest available parking spot on the side of the street, turned off the engine, and rested my head against the steering wheel, keeping in mind the fact that we couldn’t be late for the last day of school.

Tommy stayed quiet behind me in the backseat, whilst I tried to think of something to say. What was there to say?

I got up from my slumped position to look at him, brow raised high. “Do you have a fever?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Did you eat all of your breakfast?”

“Yes.”

“Did you follow your curfew and sleep properly?”

“Yes, Damon.”

I continued to give him a puzzled look. He merely watched me. “What makes you think that I’m in love with your dad?” I finally blurted out.

The child, without a hint of self-doubt, answered, “I just know.”

“You just . . . know?” I returned my hands to the steering wheel, staring at the view in front of me absentmindedly. No thoughts, my head was completely empty.

I turned the car back on, but after a second of contemplating the situation, I turned it off again. Tommy, still quiet, remained as so for the next few minutes.

He . . . he’s serious about this! He really thinks I’m in love with his father! Holy shit!

“Listen, Tommy,” I began, talking to him from the mirror. “Charlie and I have been good friends for a long time. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m in love with him—it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s in love with me either—”

“Then you should ask him.” He disrupted, once more with that serious tone.

I grimaced. “We’re just good friends. That’s all.”

“I know you love him.” He muttered, as he gazed out of the car window. Tommy hardly ever lied, and he was a good kid. Stubborn, just like his father, but still a good person.

With that in mind, I gave a defeated sigh and started up the car. I had no clue where he had gotten the idea that I was in love with Charlie. I loved them both, as I did with all my friends and my family. Had I done something to make him assume so?

If that was the case, then I needed to clear things up, and maybe even apologize. The thing about it all though, was that the observation he’d made had successfully entered my mind, and now I felt like it was going to stay there and annoy me for a long time.

“ . . . you don’t believe me.” I told him. “Then I’ll see for myself, since you’re so determined.”

Tommy remained looking out the window. “You’ll see.”

I scoffed.

He really was serious.

“Fine.” This was getting nowhere. I had to drop him off at school. “But I know your dad hasn’t fallen in love with me. And nor have I fallen in love with him.”

“How do you know?” He sounded displeased.

How did I know? Well, that was an easy question to answer. First off, I was aware of my own feelings . . . I think. And second, I was an expert in such things.

“Dear Tommy,” I said, checking the traffic to merge back onto the street. “I’m a writer who writes novels and love stories. I think I know when I’m in love with someone.”

Yeah. I always wrote about thoughts and feelings and romance. Tommy and Charlie were aware that it was my career. I had faith that, if I knew my characters well enough, then I knew myself too . . .

. . . I think.

Felix had saved me a spot in his new boarding house some time ago, back when I had told him that I would be returning to the west coast. A whole three-bedroom, one bath loft that was both historical and partly renovated from when my aunt owned the building, was the ideal home I’d wanted.

To say that it was pretty would’ve been an understatement. Felix had given me the biggest studio in the house, with vaulted ceilings, wood paneling, equipped with the antique furniture my aunt had left us behind.

It was like a solid rectangle. The bedrooms and bath were situated beside each other in the back, which made room for the floor-to-ceiling windows on the left side, to spill in the golden remnants of sunlight inside the squeezed loft. The kitchen was on the right, and the living and dining room were placed in the middle.

It was perfect timing, because my old friend Charlie had been looking for a cheaper place to stay. That was when I made the offer of becoming his roommate.

I, in no way, had ever dreamt that I’d be mulling over the idea that I was probably in love with him. I hardly wanted to think, let alone talk about it.

The subject in particular was sitting at the dining room table with me, examining paperwork that he’d spread out over the aged wooden surface, eyes focused behind a thick pair of black glasses.

After two months of living together, I noticed that he hadn’t changed much in appearance since when I last saw him in person. Maybe a bit older, though still the same.

We’d kept in touch through any means possible after I graduated high school, since I chose to attend college on the east coast. It was a miracle we even stayed connected. I basically got to watch Tommy grow into the young boy he was today. I also got to see Charlie grow as a parent too.

He must have taken notice of me studying him. Charlie was perceptive. “Is . . . there something you need to tell me?”

I disregarded the opened laptop in front of me. No more writing for now. This was the perfect opportunity to really see what I felt towards him. I mean, there was no way I would be in love with him. And it wasn’t like he was a person not to fall in love with—he was. It’s just that it was hard for me to see myself doing that, since we’d known each other for so long.

“Do you know that you’re a really attractive person?” I asked him.

He gave a short laugh, “That—that’s a good thing to know, I guess.”

In short, I always asked him strange questions. As a writer, I’d constantly sought out muses for my work. In the end, Charlie had become the one who had inspired me the longest. It sounded romantic, but at the same time was it actually love?

“Do you fall in love easily?” I gave him another question.

Charlie pushed aside his papers, like he knew I was about to go on a tangent. It was common, really. “No. I do not.” He answered, exhaling. “Do you?”

“Yes.” I told him. “Can I ask if you’re in love with someone now?”

He gave me an amused smile, sitting back. He’d gotten off of work late as he usually did and was still wearing his business work attire. Though now he was relaxed with his sleeves rolled up his arms and his hair unkempt, like he’d ran his hands through it multiple times.

I observed all of this and more, and came to the conclusion that I liked his appearance a lot. I liked him as a person in general, inside and out.

“I’ll let you know.” He assured me. “And yes, you can ask me anything.”

His answer was vague. It was enough for me to feel more confused. “But how would you let them know?” Through a confession? Through acts of love? How?

Charlie’s eyes never wavered from mine. “Why? Is this for a new story?”

“Possibly.” I said.

What could I say to Charlie, to figure out whether or not I was in love with him? Did I need to say anything? I would’ve preferred to feel, more than say.

So I did that.

I stared at Charlie intently, as he simply sat there and waited for me. “Damon?”

“I’m trying to see whether I can get a certain energy from you.” I stated.

Charlie was used to my eccentricity. “Do as you please.”

His acceptance of me was touching. Well, it was always touching. We were good friends, maybe even best friends. We got along well, despite our differences. He was reserved and responsible, whilst I was irresponsible and melodramatic.

It was even harder to imagine us when we were in high school. I was only a freshman when I met him, a senior, at our part-time job. I didn’t know how to describe our first encounter, other than the fact that we just . . . bonded? It was a gradual friendship. One that I was grateful for, and one that I’d never had before. It was nice.

“How do you know when you’re in love with someone you’ve known for so long?” I muttered to myself, unaware that I’d said it at all.

“Pardon?” Charlie had his head tilted, like he hadn’t heard me.

“N-nothing . . .” I responded.

That was a close one.

“Is this for references?” He asked me. By ‘references’, he meant the times when I observed people and places, to better help write my stories.

I shook my head and bent my face low to retreat behind my laptop. The black text against the white pages on the illuminated screen hurt my eyes. “Maybe.”

Maybe Tommy had been mistaken. I wasn’t in love with Charlie. I loved him, and I loved Tommy, as I loved all of my friends. This was just a big misunderstanding.

Charlie also wasn’t in love with me . . . I think.

I continued to stare at him.

No. No he definitely wasn’t in love with me.

“If you need help with anything—” He said, abandoning his paperwork completely to gaze at me reassuringly. “Just know that I’m here. I’ll help you get through it.”

My heart did a complete flip in my chest.

Charlie was one to say things like that all of the time, though with this new revelation of mine, I couldn’t help but feel those words pierce me more than usual.

My eyes, half-blocked by the laptop, scanned him for a moment before hiding again. It’s a good thing I had some place to conceal my face. I was burning up.

“Good t-to know.” I stuttered. Damn, why did I have to stutter?!

I rested my head on the computer keys, knowing full well that I was keyboard smashing incoherent words onto my document, but—that was exactly what my thoughts were like at the moment. A big keyboard smash of feelings.

And I was one to put all of my real feelings onto paper. So . . .

I couldn’t hide anything from myself.

The feeling one gets after working on a chapter for so long is actually a culmination of feelings that’d gathered up in the process of completing it. By 3 in the morning, I somehow felt both dizzy and disoriented, and yes I also felt exhausted. Because how possible was it to rewrite something repeatedly? I must’ve rewritten this first chapter more than twenty times (still counting).

I mulled over this as I looked out into the vast abyss of the night sky, ignoring the multicolored starry city lights below the hill we were currently on top of. Since we lived on the second floor, it was easier to see the full cityscape from my tiny balcony.

My arms draped over the metal railing, body halfway over the ledge to look more closely at the pretty view. I’d been holed up in the dining room, staring at a computer screen so long my eyes were screaming for a different sight. My fingers were aching just as much, and I could feel the moon-shaped indents the computer pad had left on my wrists. All in all, it was a usual day for me. 

Charlie had left to give Tommy his nightly bedtime story before his curfew arrived. That was hours ago. Now he was at our front door, closing it quietly so as not to wake up any of our sleeping neighbors.

I could feel his presence to my left. He too leaned over the railing, eyes fixated on the same evening view as mine. It smelled like eucalyptus from the trees close by, and with the leaves rustling in the cool wind, the usual sounds of bustling life were muted, replaced with the echoing murmurs of hidden crickets. 

“I’m writing the last book of my series.” I revealed, both excited at the prospect but melancholic at the finale as well.

He disregarded the view to look at me instead. He didn’t say anything.

“I know, right?” I answered to his silence. “Denise is gonna kill me when I call her.” My voice grew small at the thought of it. She was a friend of mine since college, and was basically the person who discovered me. Now, as my literary agent, she was severe about deadlines. I hadn’t called her in months.

“Well . . . I am worried, since you just got over writer's block—” He let me know, hitting his elbow gently against mine. “But I've seen you do great things. And, I know you'll continue to accomplish more.”

I took a second to fully digest his words. He was my beloved muse for a reason. 

“Thank you . . .” The corners of my mouth upturned into a tiny smile. “I’ll work hard.” 

He retreated back to survey the cityscape. “Your biggest fan is going to love it. And I will too.”

I turned to the loft, knowing that he was first referring to Tommy. “I hope so.”

The kid was smart. Sometimes it took me by surprise, and it was mostly due to the fact that I constantly forgot how much he was growing everyday. Kids grew up too fast.

That’s why I couldn’t help but believe Tommy when he said that I was in love with Charlie. Children were very observant. I didn’t want to brush his opinions off to the side just because he was a kid. It was important to listen to any child.

“I wanted to ask . . .” I cut into our silence. “Do you two have any ideas for the book title?”

If I couldn’t figure out my own thoughts, then I would have to organize them through some way. In my case, writing was the best technique I could use.

I would incorporate my real-life feelings, with feelings only found in fiction. I never lied to myself when I wrote. Therefore writing this book would ultimately be my key to truly understand why my head felt so unsettled by the idea of falling in love.

Once it was finished, I'd have my answer. If I was indeed in love with him, then I would confess. But if I wasn't, then that was fine too. The process of writing a book was complicated, though. As much as I wanted to keep my plans consistent, life would inevitably get in the way and change some things. My real feelings would be splattered all over the pages, for everyone to see.

Why had Tommy planted the idea at all? Now I was dwelling on it.

“This story is yours.” He said softly. “You should name it whatever you wish, Damon.”

“Whatever . . . I wish.”

I wish . . .

Silently, I watched his profile, admiring the way the moonlight cut his face deeply with shadows. He wasn’t wearing his glasses anymore, not since we were both about to bid each other goodnight. He was—as he always was beside me.

I wish I knew if I was in love with you.

“I wish . . .” I whispered.

With the night barely arriving, and with the stars shining ahead. I took this opportunity to not think of anything for the rest of the evening. Of wishes, of declarations, of feelings. I didn’t think of any of that.

It was difficult to do so. Because in the mix of it—

I could only think of Charlie.

And that alone, was enough of an answer.