A/N: This is a complete fiction piece. None of this actually happened to me, it is just an idea I came up with a while ago and finally decided to write it. It is COMPLETELY FICTION. Please do not get the wrong idea about me. That being said, please read 

I loved her. I really, really loved her. I mean, I couldn’t help it. She had been my best friend for ten years, and I was well and truly in love with her. Can you blame me? She was perfect. Flawless. Sure, she whined more than was absolutely necessary and was a little on the sensitive side, but I loved that about her, it made her fragile, it made her vulnerable, it made her human.

I don’t know how why she stuck around with me, really, in public at least. I was the mean one, the bitch, and the one that everyone knew, but wished they didn’t. I hung out with all the guys, appreciated their humor (you know, the “that’s what she said!” jokes, etc) and understood their sexual innuendoes even before they did. I was also very violent. She always joked that I needed a sign that said “Don’t piss me off-you’ll be sorry!” But I never hit her. Well, rarely, and only in fun. But I never understood why she always hung out with me. We were like polar opposites.

See, she was not only pretty- with hazel eyes that changed color with their moods, and honey-gold hair, but she was the nicest person I’d ever met in my life. To her, there were no strangers, only friends not yet made. Where I always had a bitchy comment, she had a compliment. Where I had an obnoxious joke, she had a funny wit. Where I was spontaneous and crazy and reckless, she was calm and peaceful and sweet. Everyone knew her, and everyone loved her.

But she was my best friend. We had lived just a neighborhood apart for more than ten years, and we knew each other like the back of our hands. The first time I had done something crazy and stupid, I had walked right over to her house and we had sat in her front yard and looked at the stars and talked it out for more than an hour. When her first boyfriend cheated on her, she called me at 1 o’clock in the morning and I ran over to her house in nothing more than my pajamas and a blanket and comforted her until she was composed enough to sleep. When I had my first time with a boy whom I was convinced I was in love with, but who ended up not speaking to me again, she was there for me, not judging me, helping me through my hurt and my pain.

I don’t know when I fell in love with her, but I think that it happened a long time ago, before I was quite aware of what love was. I always had a need to be close to her, and was possessive. I had the same talk with her multitude of boyfriends, in short: “Hurt her, and I’ll kill you,” and was always slightly jealous of the attention she gave them, the attention they took away from me. Not to say I never had a boyfriend, while I never had all the guys hanging off me like she did, but I had a few, but I must have seriously exuded that “stay away from me” vibe, because they were few and far between, and definitely didn’t stay long.

But while my life was completely in turmoil, she was always there. A constant light on my peripheral vision. And as she fell away intermittently, with her boyfriends and such, she always came back. And I hugged her a little tighter and a little longer than I hugged anyone else, I kissed her on the cheek in welcome, and I held her hand as we ran and laughed, though I didn’t need to, and when we sat and talked, I looked straight into her beautiful eyes, and found myself falling into them completely. I always came up with excuses to have her over, and we would stay up late and talk together about the most personal things, and crash together on the queen-sized bed in the basement, not caring if we touched or not.

I think it hit me, though, at a party for our mutual good friend. It was a dinner party, not anything really fancy, but I sat next to her, of course, even though the waiter asked if we wished to be separated (because the party was mostly boys, we were the only girls besides the birthday girl herself) to even out the table a little. We refused, looking, I’m sure, more than a little confused. But we laughed it off, and the party went on. The restaurant was loud, and in order to hear the boys on the other side of her, I had to lean over a little bit, in essence, leaning over her. She was so warm, her body was so warm, and her skin was so soft. I would lean and lay my head on her shoulder, complaining that I was so tired, and boy, couldn’t I just sleep there on her shoulder? She would laugh and say, “no, silly!” and shrug her shoulder and I would playfully slump down in my chair, forcing her to pick me up and pretend to wake me up.

I whispered in her ear, gossip about the boy across the table, or explaining the dirty joke one of the boys had just made. And she whispered back, and I had to suppress a shiver at the feel of her breath against my neck. I think I realized that night, as I grabbed her arm to point out a drawing on one of the walls, marveling silently at how soft her skin was, how truly in love with her I was.

But I couldn’t be in love with her, I just couldn’t! I mean, I was straight. I knew I was. I had done it with my ex-boyfriend, for gods’ sake! And she was straight. She had been happily dating the same guy for nearly eight months now! I just couldn’t be in love with her. I just couldn’t. But I was! I really, truly was. And so I was quiet for a little while at the party, absorbed in my thoughts, knowing the strange glances I was getting from my friends, and her. Shaking myself out of my reverie, I vowed to tell her that night, for she was staying the night at my house, and I smiled at everyone and told them all, “Sorry, I spaced.”

The night then flew by, with eating and laughter, and her warmth beside me. When the party was over we drove to my house in companionable silence, listening to our song, ‘Calling all Angels’ by Train, on the CD I had burned a long time ago. We got to my house and made our way to the basement, after changing into our typical teenage-girl pajamas (a big t-shirt and short shorts) and sat down on the queen-sized bed and turned the TV on to MTV. “What’s bothering you?” she said to me, finally, taking my hands and looking into my face. “Talk to me.”

I looked down at my hands, tightly holding on to hers. I looked back up into her eyes. “Remember when we said that we could tell each other anything, and we wouldn’t get mad?” She nodded, looking worried. “Look, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it bluntly, like I say it best.” I looked up into her face again. “I think I’m in love with you.” She looked back into my eyes, smiled, and said, “I know.”

I was slightly shocked; I couldn’t be that obvious. I opened my mouth to speak, but she shushed me and said, “I’m your best friend. I know you better than you do.” It was my turn to smile. “But why, why me?” Again, I was shocked; did she not know how beautiful she was, how desirable, how loving, how warm? But I told her anyway. We turned off the light and the TV and lay there in sweet darkness and talked, just like always. But this time, instead of talking about love and laughter with other people, we talked of our own love and laughter. Our own faults, flaws, graces, and blessings. Our own love. And as we ran out of words, she looked at me, a beacon in the dark, and said, “Hold me?”

And so I took her in my arms, as we lay in that dark room, feeling the warmth of her skin and the magic of her touch, and just held her. And before her eyes closed in the bliss of sleep, she looked up at me and said, “I love you.” I smiled and replied, “I know.” And she moved closer to me, wrapping her own arms around my form, and slept there in my arms. I slept too, blissfully holding my love in my arms. My face buried in her hair, breathing in her scent. Bliss.