Her Dreams.

You know that moment when you send a text message, and you don't instantly regret it...
but after a while you realize you probably shouldn't have done that?
That's the moment I was in back then.


"You should come over." I texted my friend, thinking it was Friday, and I was home, and she was probably home, and I just got popcorn at the store that past Teusday. Movie night sounded like a good plan. Five minutes later I'd heard a knock at the door, of course it was her, my darling Lizabeth. She had her peachy orange hair down straight around her face, making her blue eyes seem unreal, her pale skin seem paler, and her tan freckles more prominant than she'd like them to be. I smiled. Her face always made me smile.

People often misunderstood how I loved Lizabeth. She was like the first blossom on the seed you planted, after having cared for it each and every day. Like the tick of a clock. The ring of a phone. The font of your favorite novel. The smell of new cars. She was just there to me, and she couldn't not be there, and she'd always been there, and in my mind she always would be. For some reason, people didn't understand that sort of love. The unconditional kind you have for a dear friend. I didn't understand why they automatically thought I wanted to have sex with her, just because she's gorgeous. Or that I wanted to date her, just because we spent a load of time together. Can't a guy just have a friend these days?

When I smiled and she didn't smile back I assumed her mood wasn't on the side of the house with the greener grass, so I told her "We could talk, or we can watch a movie and eat popcorn, or we can take a walk." She just stood there. I hugged her, and she shoved me off. So I hugged her again.

"Movie."

I put in an old version of King Kong we'd already seen seventeen times. I looked and saw her sitting on my white fluffy couch, her small frame somewhat taken into it, tank-top, shorts, flipflops and all. I smiled, but then I saw the gloomy look on her pale freckled face and sighed inwardly.

Half way through the movie I just couldn't take it. Her silence was stabbing a hole in both of my ear drums like a fork in a tomato.

"What's wrong?"

"Just watch the movie, Fernando."

"I can't watch the movie like this."

She huffed, and looked at me, and whispered "I love you. Please watch the movie."

I looked right back at her. "I love you too, but I honestly cannot watch the movie with you like this."

"Not friendly love, Fernando. I love you. That's why I'm moody. So just watch the movie."

I didn't know what to say. She looked back to the TV like it was brainwashing her, but I just locked on her face and couldn't look away. I'd texted her that night, and told her to come. But I regretted it then. Since when had she made this discovery that I was more than a friend in her heart? I didn't understand. I was dumbfounded. I got up and turned the TV off.

"What are you doing?" She sat up a bit, a concerned look flashed across her face, and then a blank stare again.

I walked back over to her. "Lizabeth, you know you can't say something like that and expect me to do nothing-"

"I know."

"Then elaborate. Why is that making your mood so gloomy, and why did you come if you it was me upsetting you?"

She shot up off the couch, and headed straight for the door. I couldn't believe it. She always talked to me. Always gave me answers for things. And I to her. So why was that any different? I grabbed her hand and turned her around and she growled at me.

"I don't want to talk about this."

"Well I do."

"Well I don't."

And out she went.

It's been a week.

Everyday I texted her "Good morning Lizabeth" and "Good night Lizabeth" without a single reply. It was the first time since we'd met that we went a whole week without some sort of communication being passed from us both. I felt like a lost puppy.

I'm walking through a rather heavy storm past the park on my way home from the part time job I have at the record store, and I look over, and there she is. My Lizabeth. Sitting completely alone, most likely soaked from the rain, on the swing. I freeze up. This is it, I'm thinking, go talk to her. Before I know it, I'm sprinting to that swing. I get right up to it before she notices me there, and when she does her eyes go wide, and I'm relatively sure she's not breathing for a split second.

"Listen, Lizabeth, really, thi-" I can't finish anything before she's on the move. So I grab her.

"Fernando, no."

"Yes." I pull her off to the overhang of a nearby café to get out of the rain even though we're already drenched. "Where have you been the past week?" I ask her, and she's just looking at me with this sullen face. This worn out, tired, no life face. Her eyes don't shine in the least.

"We can't do this. Because I love you. And I know you don't love me the same way. That's where I've been. I've been accepting that fact, and trying to get over it, because I know it's a fact. I know it is. And besides you being the subject of intrest, this has nothing to do with you, so I've been concquering it alone."

"That's bullshit."

She stops, and looks at me, and I look back at her, and I say "This has everything to do with me. You are my closest friend. Any problem of yours is a problem of mine. Even if I'm the problem. No -- especially if I'm the problem."

"Do you love me?"

"Of course I d-"

"As more than a friend, Fernando."

I stop. And I think about it. I think hard. I've only ever had one girlfriend, so I don't really know. I didn't really love that girlfriend, I just didn't want to say no when she asked me to date her. It didn't last very long. So now I think. What exactly is the love I'm looking to feel. I realize I don't know, but I don't think it's the love I have for Lizabeth. And I panic.

Because I don't want Lizabeth out of my life, but I don't want to lie to her, and I don't want to tell her I can't answer the question for that stupid reason.

She's just there, standing across from me, and I honestly don't know what to do.