JEnnie

I was an idiot. I’d been acting like an idiot ever since the lights came on back on the bus and I was worried we were going to get caught almost kissing. That would’ve been taking the dare way too far.

And so my mind had sort of shut down. I’d stared out the window for the rest of the ride, painfully conscious of Lisa right next to me. Painfully aware of what had almost happened.

I could feel her shifting next to me. It felt like she wanted to say something, but she never did. So I’d kept my mouth shut too.

I should have said something to her. I should have tried to clear the air.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d gone too far when I leaned in and tried to kiss her. That it was too much for her. That she wasn’t interested in me like that.

I kept imagining my friend paralyzed with fear as her best friend leaned in close. Almost to the point of brushing our lips together. I wondered how I’d feel if the roles were reversed and someone I trusted was leaning in for an unwanted kiss.

Well, actually, I would be pretty ing stoked if something like that happened to me. The kiss would be anything but unwanted, but of course I was the one with a crush on Lisa and not the other way around.

She was probably terrified in that moment. I’d taken advantage of our friendship and she was paralyzed, not knowing what to do.

I felt like scum. I was worse than scum.

And so I sat staring out of the window of her car just like I’d been staring out the windows of the bus. I didn’t dare say anything. I worried that she would blow up at me. Tell me exactly how she felt.

I didn’t think I could take hearing exactly how she felt. Not right now. Not when I’d been so close to paradise earlier.

I turned and looked at her. Her face was dark, illuminated only occasionally by lights outside. I turned away. I was being the worst kind of coward and I hated it.

“Is there something on your mind?” Lisa asked.

I jumped. We’d been riding in silence for so long that I didn’t expect to hear her talk. I looked over at her and she smiled.

“I was just thinking,” I said.

Lisa continued glancing over in my direction occasionally. Which meant she was taking her eyes off the road which didn’t seem completely safe. I yelped in alarm as she nearly went over the yellow centerline.

Sure there were no cars out there to run into us, but still. It didn’t seem like a good habit for her to get into.

What if she went over the other line and slammed into a pole or something? That would be the end of us and I’d die never knowing what the heck was going on here!

Once I was sure we weren’t going to slam into anything I racked my mind trying to think of an answer to her question. What was I thinking of? Well I was thinking of how close I’d come to kissing her. How close we’d come to doing the sort of thing that was going on in the very back of the bus right behind us. I was thinking about how frustrated I was when that didn’t happen.

“I was thinking about tonight,” I said.

That was a good start. That was nice and vague. I wasn’t giving anything away.

“Really? What about tonight?”

There was a slight hitch to her voice. I shook my head. I needed to get out from under this spell she’d cast on me. I needed to resist the delicious tingle that ran through my body every time her voice hit my ears.

It had been pure torture being friends with her all these years stuck in the friend zone. The cheerleader and the band geek. Yeah, any other band geek would be happy to go on a date with a cheerleader, but of course my band geek had to be my best friend who was also a girl like me.

“It’s complicated” didn’t begin to describe what was going on between us, and the kicker was Lisa had no idea how complicated it really was. She had no idea what she could do to me with a look.

A smile.

I thought the friend zone was something only guys talked about, but it was very real and it was pure torture for a closet case like me.

“I was thinking that maybe we could hang out tonight?” I said.

There. That was safe enough territory. We hung out at each other’s houses often enough. It was a regular thing. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary there even if the idea of spending the night at her house gave me a case of the shivers. She wouldn’t think it was odd that I was asking to hang out tonight.

At least I hoped she wouldn’t.

That almost-kiss felt like it had changed everything between us. The awkward was so thick that I could almost reach out and touch it.

“Two nights in a row?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

I blushed. Hopefully she couldn’t see it in the dark. It was sort of a tradition. Friday nights after football games we went back to one of our places and had a sleepover.

I loved that tradition. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I didn’t care that Joy was always giving me about going to one of the big football parties out at the great Donghyuk's house after.

I’d skip any stupid football party if it meant more time with Lisa.

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