Burrow

October 14, 2024

The summer sun had made her skin deep and bronze, and her eyelashes light and golden, making them about the same color. Though it was October now, she still looks straight out of a summers day, just wrapped in her cream Fishermans sweater. I had given it to her for Christmas last year, and she never seems to stop going on and on about it, which makes me feel good. I have never really been that good at gift giving, and she is someone I really wanted to give nice things to, but just didn’t know how.

I glance over at her and soak up the way the October sun kisses her cheeks as she takes in one of the last nice days of the year. She is absolutely lovely. I am not sure how someone like me has captured her attention so wholly, maybe it was the fact that she had just moved here and was lonely, or the fact that she thought that I was interesting because I was so “to myself” as my mother often referred to my personality, or maybe it was because I was nothing like her. I may never know. But I am sitting here knowing that I need to take in every moment with her that I can before she realizes I am not fun to hang out with. She often gets on me when I talk to her about feeling this way. ( Which I don’t often, but three weekends ago, at Charlies party, during truth or dare, one thing lead to another and I admitted that I thought she was too cool to be my friend, and she has asked me about it a couple times since then.)

“I’m not going anywhere, you can stop staring at me.” she says and peeks one eye open knowingly towards me.

“I’m not starting!” I say and look away, blushing. Of course I was staring, while we had been friends for over a year now, it is still mind blowing to me that someone like her would want to be friends with someone like me.

“You sure were. It’s okay. I would stare at me, too.” She says with a playful wink and a laugh in her tone. I hit my shoulder against hers and she feigns falling over and gasps. “I’ve been hit!” Without much thought, I burrowed my face into her neck and instantly I am filed with regret. What have I done? I pull back and look at her and I can tell there is nothing but fear in my eyes as I look back at her. There is not an shred of fear on her face, instead, there is something that strangely looks like desire. Which, honestly, makes me more afraid. What is she going to do now? I swear years pass with us looking into each others eyes and I look away feeling the embarrassment rush to my cheeks, neck and ears. I put my hands to my face and feel the heat against my cold hands and I feel her hand on the crook of my elbow, dragging my hand away from my face.

“No, no, no, no, no…” I whisper and feel the tears welling in my eyes. I knew I would mess this up. I have barely been friends with her a year and I was already pushing her away with my feelings. How could I do this to myself? And now I was going to cry in front of her and make things even more weird. That was not something I would usually do, why did I do this now?

“Look at me.” she says calmly, and I slowly do as she asks, and remove my hands from my face, letting the tears begin to spill down my cheeks before looking up at her. “What is going on?” There is compassion in her voice and a more hushed tone than I have heard her use before, which makes the tears roll more feverishly down my cheeks. She reaches up to my cheek and brushes the tears off with the back of her fingers and I try to stifle a sniffle.

“I’m sorry. I am just embarrassed and am worried that you will no longer want to be my friend after my foolish actions.” my voice hitches and she cups my chin with her hand.

“I still want to be your friend, I promise.” there is laughter on the edge of her statement and my face re-warms as I get up to leave. Her hand slips into mine and yanks me back. A pain shoots up my arm and I cry out in pain as her lips meet mine and the world melts away.