She doesn’t need to ask me twice.
Phone working both ways here. Mom says thanks.
I love your mom
I pretend it says I love you even though I know it never will.Chapter FourChandlerI stare at myself in the full-length mirror, wondering what Berkley sees when he looks at me. Does he find me attractive? Or does he only look at me as one of the guys? I know I look at him differently. It hit me out of nowhere during my junior year. Ever since then I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him as more than a friend.
I don’t do the boy thing, or at least I never wanted to do it before. I had a bad experience when I was a freshman. I’ve often wondered if how I am toward boys is because of that or because no one ever really piqued my interest. In middle school all the girls were boy crazy. I never experienced it.
Then the summer before my junior year I went down to stay with my grandparents for six weeks over summer break. I got back only days before classes started. I’d been busy getting ready for the new year and hadn’t seen Berkley since I’d gotten back.
That was until Davis knocked on my door the first day of school, telling me to get my ass moving. I’d opened the backdoor ready to give him attitude right back, but my eyes went straight to Berkley, who was standing on the sidewalk not paying any attention to me at all.
Thank God he was staring down at his phone and didn’t catch my reaction to him. I would have died of embarrassment. He was no longer the Berkley I’d known for so long. He was a man now. He not only bulked up, but I swear he grew another foot and he was already freaking tall. His face was different too. It had lost its boyishness. His features seemed to become more distinct; some might say intimidating with his eyes. I hadn’t been prepared for the reaction my body had to him.
A switch had flipped, and I had no idea how to handle it. He was suddenly the only thing I could see or focus on. He made me ache everywhere. I’d gone to school thinking maybe I was the one that had changed. That maybe I was a late bloomer and I was finally catching the boy crazy bug that everyone else had already been suffering with for years.
Yet, as my first day of school wore on, and I walked the halls, not one other person had done what Berkley did to me that morning and every morning since. I had chalked it up to me being nervous for the first day of school. But I knew it was more than that. It was something I wasn’t ready to admit because I didn’t have a grasp on it.
That was until he sat down next to me in the cafeteria at lunch, offering me some fries, and those feelings had come rushing back. So many of them that I had a hard time processing them. It had been more than attraction. He gave me a sense of security. I seemed to relax around him. That stands true to this day. I still have the urge to lean into him. To bury my face in his chest. To have his big arms wrapped around me, making me feel safe. That has never subsided.
If it had been anyone else in the world, I would have gone to Davis to talk about it. It felt awkward for some reason for me to talk to him about Berkley. I don’t know why. I tell Davis everything. He’s been my best friend for so long, and no one knows me better than him, but I could never get the words to come out of my mouth. So I suffered in silence, not telling a soul about the fire Berkley had started inside of me.
Now I think I’m starting to go insane trapped in this house all the time pretty much alone with only myself to entertain me. With my parents working nights, that means they sleep days. A lot of mornings I’ll get up early and make breakfast for when they get home. It should be dinner for them, but breakfast can really be anytime if you ask me.
Now all I do is think. Each day is exactly like the day before. Sometimes I regret that I wasn’t more social before. Not that I need anyone, but it would be nice to have someone to text with or call sometimes that isn’t Davis.
He is the worst on the phone. He often forgets he’s even on it and somehow loses it. He’s lucky he’s good looking.
Then we have Berkley. I finally pulled his number out of him. I’m in a group message with him and Davis. I always talk in there trying to get him to say something. I’ve given up, not understanding why he’d be in a group chat if he wasn’t going to participate. I huff, dropping down onto my bed.