“Mara. I can’t pretend anymore,” Jay said, and intense depth of meaning hidden within his eyes. “Not after what happened.”

“Okay?”

“You’re the most important person in my life.” He shook his head, his eyes watering, reflecting the light of day as well as a hazy image of my wide-eyed stare. “I couldn’t imagine getting through all this without you.”

I wasn’t sure what to do with that or what to say in response. It sounded strangely like a confession, one I knew wouldn’t be happening. We were good friends, best friends, but dating? That wasn’t us, right?

Maybe he was getting sentimental or emotional now that it was officially all over.

“Jay.”

“I don’t know who I have to thank for you being at my side,” he continued. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, Jay.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, even if he looked serious. It was crazy. Some long drawn out speech like this was something people used to proposing romance, right?

“But you sound like you’re proposing to me,” I joked.

When there was no response, even as my chuckles died down, I looked at his face again. My heart lurched and everything seemed to stop. His face held no laughter. It wasn’t that my humor was bad, it was as if it hadn’t been a joke to him at all.

Like I’d hit the bullseye with my words.

“What…”

I couldn’t find the remaining words to any of the questions now swirling inside my mind. Where my voice trailed off, his rose.

“I like you, Mara. Not just as a friend.”

Tears in his eyes, he pursed his lips. He lifted our hands a little before returning them to where they were, hanging in the air between us. As he gave a gentle squeeze, his expression did that weird tilt of disheartened sadness, of taking a guess at the answer and wishing you were wrong… yet knowing you had to ask.

“You’re the girl I’ve fallen in love with.”

What was I supposed to say?

What was I meant to do here?

The world. Everything I ever knew was crumbling away at my fingertips. Sand, running through an hourglass, onto my hands, falling away, scattering on the breeze. I couldn’t pick up the pieces as they blended into the quicksand at my feet, pulling me in, deeper and deeper, under and beneath. A struggle would only speed up the process.

But if I couldn’t move anyway, what was the point of struggling? What was the point of knowing what things once were, if it could never be that way again?

Once said, words could never truly be taken back.

All the while, from before the day of the accident, he’d been harboring feelings for me, growing and weaving, changing and flourishing at the time we spent talking and hanging out together. The dinners. The movies. Little trips together. The things that could constitute a date night, but we both agreed they were little fun hangouts instead.

How much… had I said?

Of friendship?

How much had I hurt him all this time by shoving him away?

I hadn’t known…

Because he was only a friend to me.

Not more.

Those weren’t dates to me. Those were the wanting to spend time with a friend or family, not a boyfriend.

But I didn’t have to say yes.

I didn’t have to agree to this.

“Mara. Say something.”

I couldn’t.

Tugging my hands free as gently as possible, no resistance from his own that seemed to fall away in slow motion at the first pull, I couldn’t bring myself to look at his face. Even without seeing it, I knew the expression his face would have.

“Mara…”

I heard it in his voice as he said my name.

Sadness.

The crushing sensation of lost hope.

“I need some time, okay? You can’t expect me to answer you right away. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.” I didn’t know what else to do. How was I supposed to break his heart like this? My mind was flooded with questions and confusion, memories of old peeking in to say hello, spinning those moments in a new light with regard to his harbored feelings. “Give me some time and I’ll give you an honest answer.”

“Okay,” he replied quietly, nodding as he stuffed his hands into his pockets with that awkward and tense rise of his shoulders.

Without another clear word, just muttered goodbyes, we parted ways, heading different directions to the places we each called home.

My feet were heavy and my nose stung fiercely as I strode down the seemingly endless sidewalk. Tears pooled under my eyes, but didn’t fall. I couldn’t bring myself to look back for a long while. When my mind slipped back to the fact he’d just gotten out of the hospital, I found myself turning, eying the distant entrance of the building, half expecting to see him standing there like in the movies, watching the girl of their dreams go away.

He wasn’t there.

Even though it was a good sign, I wasn’t relieved at the sight.

I couldn’t even ask myself why this was happening. Swirling emotions filled me, but I didn’t know which they were. They just existed, weighing heavily on my heart, sending an ache through my soul.

As the days passed, my life was filled with unending and distracting thoughts. Ones of Jay, of what I needed to decide and tell him. Little wonderings of what it might be like to leave this place and never return, to drop all contact and flee. I couldn’t do it, but it didn’t stop me from thinking of it.

Everything felt suddenly out of place in my home and life, me included.

Perhaps the worst of all… was the complete silence.

It was a slow agonizing realization that I wanted Jay in my life. I wanted to talk to him constantly. Wanted to share in little moments and jokes.

Suddenly, I didn’t care what form it came in. Romantic or not, I just wanted his presence.

A nagging thought kept preventing me from grabbing my phone and calling him.

Deceit.

It was wrong to claim something I didn’t feel, to drag it out as a romance only to part ways for good when it failed.

What if he tried to kiss me?

My pace increased as I made my way over to the next corner, stopping upon arrival to wait for the walk signal to appear opposite me.

What if I couldn’t do it?

I failed to conjure an image of us kissing in my mind. Though I didn’t see Jay as a brother, and I did see him as attractive, that action had never crossed my mind before.

I couldn’t lie to him, could I?

My phone buzzed quietly in my pocket, drawing me from my thoughts. As if privy to my restless and anxious thoughts, I pulled it out to see the text I’d received. Inside, I was begging for an enticing distraction.

I simply stared down at the name at the top for a long moment. My mind blanked for several long seconds before a wave of questions and concerns arose anew.

Jay.

Texted.

Jay texted me.

Just like before, like our promise before the accident, he was asking to go see a new movie. I fiddled with the watch on my wrist out of habit, a source to relieve my anxious thoughts and worries.

In the back of my mind I heard several loud shouts, a screech, and screams. My eyes were glued to my screen, rereading the words, trying to find a hidden meaning that wasn’t there, trying to discover how I was feeling upon seeing the message.

In the commotion, I heard something familiar. It itched in the back of my mind until it was clearer, right near me. It was my name. Someone was calling me.