Dreams of 18

How wrong is that, right?

Right?

So, so wrong.

I’m probably breaking all the cardinal rules of friendship. In fact, I broke them even before Brian and I became friends because I inadvertently watched his dad the day they were moving in.

Ugh, why do I like the wrong things? Why?

But there’s a silver lining.

You see, it’s a crush – just a crush and not love.

Thank God, it’s not love.

Thank. God.

There’s no way it can be love. I don’t know anything about love. It’s not like I’m rolling in it. My dad hardly pays me any attention. I drive my mother to drink. My sister barely tolerates me. Before Brian, I had no friends.

But most of all, how can you fall in love with someone you haven’t even talked to?

Mr. Edwards and I, we haven’t had a single conversation in the two years that he’s lived next door. In fact, he’s never even looked at me once.

Not once.

I’m not kidding. I don’t think that Mr. Edwards knows that I exist, even though I’m his son’s best friend.

Although, some of it is my doing.

After it became apparent that I had this massive crush on my best friend’s dad, I stopped going over to Brian’s house. I’d make excuses and avoid setting foot in a place that smelled so like Mr. Edwards: all spicy and musky. It got so bad that Brian would keep talking and I’d sniff the air just to smell more of his dad, completely tuning him out.

That’s creepy, right?

So, I avoided going there and instead, started to have Brian over to my place. Which we’ve debated about quite a few times.

“Why can’t we hang out at my place?” he asked me one time, while we were in my room, doing homework.

I pursed my lips, still keeping my eyes on the notebook. “We hang out at your place.”

“No, we don’t.” Then he sat up straight, all blond and broad – not as broad as his dad though. “And I think I know why.”

Thank goodness I was sitting at my desk and my head was bent over my homework so I could hide my face from him. My blushing, heated face.

“There’s no reason,” I said quickly.

“It’s my dad, isn’t it?”

“What?”

Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

“You’re scared of him.”

At this, I had to look at him because… what?

“What?” I repeated my thought.

He had his arms crossed over his chest as he raised his eyebrows at me. “You are. It’s because he’s such a hardass, isn’t it? You’re scared of him.”

“I’m not scared of your dad.”

Quite the opposite, actually. I was afraid of the fact that I wasn’t afraid of his dad at all. I was afraid that if his dad looked at me in front of Brian, I’d blush so badly that my secret would come out.

“Come on, Vi. You can tell me.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “You can tell me anything. You can tell me all your secrets.”

Um, I think not.

I threw a pencil at him and his goofy moves. “You’re crazy.”

He thumped a fist on his chest, going all macho on me. “What, you think I can’t protect you? Come on, Vi, I can take my dad for you. You know I’ll keep you safe. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

I wrinkled my nose when he winked at me. “Yeah, why don’t you save your flirting for the girls who’re actually interested?”

“Well, if you gave me one indication that you are one of those girls, I’d leave everyone for you.”

I rolled my eyes at him and his strangely grave voice before going back to my homework.

But then, that’s Brian.

Completely crazy and goofy and oozing with boyish charm. Every girl at school wants him and every boy wants to be his friend. So totally different than my weird, shy self and somehow we’re friends.

Anyway, after a lot of avoidance and making myself scarce around Mr. Edwards, it’s safe to say that I haven’t exchanged a single word with him in two years.

So how can it be love?

How can it be that gravity-defying, soul-deep, bone-tingling, epic-as-fuck connection when we haven’t done something as basic as have a conversation?

It can’t be and it’s not.

I don’t even know the man. Not really.

All I have is a few scraps of useless information that I’ve either observed or heard from his son. That shirt-touching thing? It didn’t happen because I broke into Mr. Edwards’s room in the middle of the night to try to feel his clothes up. It happened because I was helping Brian with the laundry and I just… accidentally on purpose touched it a little.

Even so, how would Brian react if he knew that I was some kind of a creepy information-hoarder? That I watch his dad at night and that I love his plaid shirts?

He would flip out and dump me as his friend, that’s what.