Dave

“He’s such an asshole! Why won’t he just leave me alone?!” Emily fumed, stomping along behind me as we made our way out to my car at the end of the day. This was a normal practice. We usually carpooled to school since we lived so close to each other.

I shrugged in response to her remark. “He’s Ethan. I doubt we will never know why he does any of the asinine things he does.”

Sometimes I wondered if I hated Ethan even more than Emily did. I may not have been quite as reactive as she was, but on some level I was pretty positive that the things he did pissed me off even more than they did her. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure that anything nice could be said for Ethan Gregory. The closest I could think of was that he had good taste in girls. And that was only recently. Collectively his taste could be narrowed down to 'female, non-lesbian' (and it was a well known fact throughout Montpelier High that even some lesbians had made an exception for him), but lately it seemed like he took more into consideration when choosing a conquest. Or maybe it was just that he'd already been with every other girl in school. Emily was the one exception. I couldn't think of any other explanation for his sudden interest in her. He used to hate her as passionately as she still hated him. They were constantly waging some battle or another against each other. Thankfully, to Emily the fact that Ethan seemed to no longer have any other hobbies beside stalking her was just another factor of his man-whore-ish-ness that she would have to suffer through and could mock as frequently as she saw fit. And she would. If he thought she would be an easy catch, he had another thought coming.

I should know. I'd been after Emily since we were eleven. Unfortunately for me, she never gave any hint of seeing me as anything other than her best friend. Of course, I’d never tried to bring up the topic of us being anything more. Mostly because I was too afraid of what she would say. Besides, one day while comforting her after her boyfriend at the time dumped her (I think I deserve some kind of an award for being that self-sacrificing), she brought it up herself.

“I can’t believe him,” she had cried. “I can’t believe he would do something like this to me. This is one of the reasons why I’m glad we’re only friends. I know you’ll never hurt me like that.” She had smiled shakily through her tears at this point. “You’re like the brother I never had.”

Ouch. But I was willing to accept that she didn’t feel that way about me. After all, having her in my life in any possible way was a thousand times better than not having her at all. So I continued to endure her horrible choices in boyfriends. Not to say that I endured them quietly. I was pretty vocal when I thought she was making a choice that would end up hurting her. Most of the time, she just yelled at me and told me to butt out and refused to talk to me for a few days. But I was still always there to comfort her when things ended badly. If it took her thirty years to realize how good we would be together, I would wait. And if she never realized it, well, I didn’t have any problem with being her friend if that‘s all she would let me be.

Emily grunted in frustration, dragging my mind back to the present situation. “I don’t see why he won’t just give up! God! I think I’ve made it clear that I’m not interested!” She glared out the window as I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

“Maybe that’s the problem. He likes a challenge too much. He can’t resist your resisting him.” I joked. Emily’s head whipped around, her eyes wide with horror.

“Oh my God. You don’t think that’s really it, do you?” She cringed. “What if he never stops?! I think I’m going to die.” I chuckled at her melodrama, but now that I actually considered what I’d said, it did seem logical.

I thought for a minute before responding. “Maybe he’d give up if you stopped resisting. Like, agree to one date or something. Why would he keep chasing if there wasn‘t anything left to chase?”

I was shocked at my words even as they were leaving my mouth. Why was I endorsing my worst enemy? Especially to the girl of my dreams?

Emily snorted. “I think I’d rather die.”

I’d never been more glad to hear those words in my life.