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Someone knocks on my door faintly, and when I tell them to come in, I see Sapnap standing right behind it. His expression is stern and unphased; my heart tightens a little, not knowing what's happening.
"What's up?" I ask, trying to keep my cool when in fact, I'm flipping with worry.
"It's been six months, dude," he responds, and I look at him confused. He closes the door and places his back against the wall in my room. I sit up on my bed and put my phone to the side, waiting for him to explain.
"Care to tell me what you're talking about?" I'm still looking over at him with a puzzled expression.
"George came here six months ago today," he speaks with a tone I'd rather not have heard, not right now and not from him. I gulp silently and look down to take my phone back into my hand, avoiding the stern look I'm being given right now. "Dream."
It's been six months since George got to Florida, that's what everyone knows. But what it has been six months since is also my promise to Sapnap. My promise to finally talk to the British brunet.
With no valid excuse now that he's here, living with us, I agreed to sit down with George and ask him about what we want to be, or at least confess so he knows where I stand. I agreed to talk to him about emotions, which I'm supposed to be fairly good at, but whenever I think of doing it, my airways close up and my hands get clammy, and I end up in Sapnap's room, telling him how big of a mess he makes of me. He gets my heart to hammer, threatening to burst out, and thoughts to clutter and knot together in an unreadable jumble.
It's harder now that he's not an ocean but a corridor, a few rooms or even steps away. I try to keep him at arm's length all the time, but he manages to rip me closer by my littlest finger and wrap me around his ethereal laughs and smiles and eyes so perfectly brown, like the ground, that I let myself get buried in them.
I'm not even doing anything in particular on my phone, I turn it back on to look busy while my best friend floods the air around us with his disappointment. Sapnap steps closer to me and knocks the device out of my grasp. I let it fall beside me without any resistance; I know that in the end he's just trying to help.
"Dude," he says, and I sigh when he sits down on the edge of the bed. "Stop fucking around! It's not even about promising it to me, it's all for you." I let his words echo in my scull; my head is rarely as empty as it is right now.
"I won't be able to handle it if he doesn't take me seriously or like, laughs at me while I say it." I finally look up at Sapnap's softened eyes. "You know how he is."
"And I know how you have been feeling for god knows how long. How are you even managing all this?"
"I don't know," I answer quietly.
"Do you think he'll seriously laugh or turn you down immediately?"
"I- don't know."
"Do you still think he's actually straight?" I glower at him in response. "I get it, I get it, you don't know," He quotes me. "But you're talking to him, I'm not letting you get away with this bullshit for longer."
"Sap-"
"I swear if you come crying to me because you couldn't start talking to him one more time, I'll literally tell him myself," he threatens, and I shut up immediately, bringing my legs up closer to my chest. "Dream-"
"No, I know. You're right, I-" I sigh. "-I'm gonna do it, I know I have to." My stare drops, and I start picking on the skin around my nails. Sapnap disconnects my hands when he notices, and I thank him silently with a small smile. He cares for me greatly; sometimes I feel I don't deserve it all.
"Just don't leave it hanging, alright?" He pats me on my leg before standing up from my bed and walking out of the room. I hide my face between my arms and worry that I'll turn back from doing this at the last moment like I always do.
I'm a coward, really.
I've been papering this over, wanting to let it go unnoticed. Maybe Sapnap will forget - I was stupid to even consider that option. I've been carrying this weight for way too long, and it has only gotten bigger as time passed. It's been pushing me down, kicking at my feet, and making me descend down into a pit of stress and worry. My eyes are prickling with tears at only the thought of this going wrong. I slide my phone into the pocket of my sweats and walk out of my room. Sapnap's in the corridor; he looks over to where I stand like he's been waiting here for me to go out.
"He's not home right now," the younger informs me as if he knew I was going out to check exactly that. I nod over to him, and he disappears behind the door to his room. I sigh contently and let my breathing even out. I've got myself a bit more time since he's not here.
I don't go back to my room. Instead, I stay over in the living room to catch the older one right when he comes home. It doesn't take too long for me to hear the jingle of keys against the front door - my body tenses, and my head starts hurting as if on cue. I look over to where he is now and catch a smile on his face when he notices me.
I can't believe I'm about to tear that happiness off of him.
I wait for him to come over to me and stand up from the couch when he's close enough.
"Hey-"
"Hey, um-" we speak in sync, but his happy tone doesn't match my quieter one.
"I want to talk," I say without even giving him a chance to tell me first what he tried to say. Him starting a conversation about something else would risk me not saying anything once again. George's eyes trail to mine; I see them widen slightly.
"Oh no, are you mad? Sapnap told you, didn't he? Oh my-" He groans. What the fuck? "I knew I couldn't trust him. Look, I'm sorry, it was an acc-"
"George, what the fuck are you saying?" I try to interrupt his words.
"-ident! I didn't know the shirt would shrink! I-"
"George." I grab him by the shoulders, and he stops speaking. "Wait, my shirt? The one I can't find since three days?"
"So you didn't know? What?" He cocks his head to the side, and I pinch the bridge of my nose in annoyance.
"I- Oh my god, you're making this hard. That's not what I was going to talk about." I let my hands fall down. I can't lie, I loosened up somewhat, forgetting the main purpose of our conversation for a brief moment, and I found out what happened to my favourite shirt. Still, when I try to collect my thoughts into what I'm actually supposed to say, I feel my heart coming up to my throat.
"Just-" I sigh when I can't finish the sentence I'm trying to tell. The air shifts slightly when George feels this is supposed to be much more serious than he thought in the first place.
He stands in front of me, quiet as I scramble to get something, anything, out of my mouth. He sees I'm in slight distress and touches my arm softly. I breathe out when I feel ready to speak.
"Can we sit in the backyard?" I ask, and he nods.
"Of course," he answers contently.
We walk through our house's backdoor and sit beside each other on the nicely cut grass.
"So?" he speaks and nudges me with his shoulder when I don't immediately start talking. I shake my head with a soft smile.
"You know, I never would've thought I'd get this attached to someone." I start, bringing my knees to my chest in an attempt to balance the vulnerability of my words with a bit of shielding of my own body and posture. George keeps looking ahead; I can't figure out yet how much he's realized about what I'm trying to say to him.
We sit in silence.
I can't seem to find more words to break through it at this moment. He scoots a bit closer to me, allowing our sides to merge together with a comforting touch. It lets me gain back a bit of confidence to start speaking once again.
"Is it horrible that I want to call you mine?" I choke out and feel George's body stiffen against mine. Fuck- Now my head is swarmed with the thought that I did this wrong, just like I imagined it to go. But George stays quiet and doesn't budge from my side. I let the words hang in the air before deciding if I even want to say anything else at all for now. He seems up in his head about this, not even bothering to spare me a single glance, which I don't blame him for.
He shifts in his seat, and I'm almost sure he's going to get up and leave me here, but I feel his soft hair brush against my jaw slightly before he fully puts the weight of his head on my shoulder. I don't look over at him, in fact, I'm now too scared to even breathe properly. But when his finger softly hooks under one of mine, my stomach flips, and my breath hitches - I feel like I just came back to life.
He's so quiet like he always is in conversations like these. He'll try to tell me as much as he can without any words, and he does it perfectly. Although I will still need him to say anything at all if I want this to be sorted out once and for all, his touch reminds me that I don't disgust him with what I feel. He doesn't seem appalled by me. He doesn't seem to refuse to take up this topic completely, so while his hand plays with my fingers softly, I try to speak again, even though I'm well out of breath.
"Do you want us to be something?" The words flow out of my mouth melodically. It leaves room for us to think and consider, to lay out our options first before we jump to conclusions.
Something, I think.
Maybe he'll tell me we already are. We're friends, that's surely far more than nothing. It's something, and if that is what it's supposed to be, I'll live how I've been living these past years and pretend George doesn't turn my whole world upside down. I'll hope to move on eventually, even though I know I won't be able to find someone to love as dearly as I do George. He's the first, and will always be the blueprint for everyone else in the future, which I'm not sure is fair on them.
Whatever George takes my words as, I won't question. If he's not in love, then out of the two of us, he's definitely the one able to think more rationally, and I'll accept it if that's where he thinks we're supposed to stand.
Still, I let him lay on me and touch me softly, slightly impatient for him to start speaking. He intertwines our fingers, and I clasp down on his hand; he does the same. It's already late evening, so the sun is settling, displaying smudges of pink, orange and purple all across the horizon. I wish silently for George to experience the same view of this as I do.
"I'd be okay with that," the boy beside me whispers out, and for the first time since we started talking about this, I move to look at him. He takes his head off my shoulder, and now his face is fully in my vision. The peaceful sun is helping him hide his flush, but it's taking the prominence of his freckles right away with it, which I frown slightly from. His eyes still glow the same, though, and I take in every sparkle, one by one.
He doesn't scare away from looking into my eyes, letting me sense the pure honesty of this moment. My chest feels heavy, but my head is clearer than it was at the start; I wish I could dig through his right now to find out exactly what he's thinking. "I can be yours," he finally states, and I watch his lips move as he says the words out loud to be sure I'm not just hearing them in my head. The wind picks up, and it makes us both shudder. He watches my hair get swept over to the side, and I hurry to keep them in place with my hand, which makes him smile endearingly. "That would mean you'd be mine too," he speaks once again, dropping his stare down to the grass, picking on it mindlessly.
I take my hand up to his hair, and with the lightest touch I'm able to give, I swipe it to the side, mimicking what he always does when trying to fix it. It gets him to look up at me once again with glossy eyes; my hand twitches.
His beauty is a sight for sore eyes.
I don't know how I look right now, but I feel as though I'd rather not find out. I feel hot in the face and sweaty everywhere else, yet George still looks at me like he never wants to stop. I shoot my stare down at his lips and curse myself mentally for doing it at a moment like this. He takes a deep breath and looks into the sky like he was previously.
I let myself do one thing without thinking it through, so before I know it, I'm holding my breath and leaning closer to his face. My lips press against his slightly stubbly cheek. I look at the spot when I back away and start breathing again when I look somewhere else. He doesn't stop picking at the grass; it actually gets more aggressive, and his hand shakes softly as he does it. I push at him carefully with my shoulder a couple of times before he finally smiles and chuckles. I break right after him.
Warmth blooms through my body as we both shake our heads in disbelief. The sun settles almost all the way when we're done with all that has happened. I offer him a helping hand when he stands up from the grass and hold the door open for him to go inside. I trail along right after him until we stand before his room. I kiss his temple in silence, and he nudges my jaw with his nose before he walks into his bedroom and closes the door behind him.
When I reach for the handle to my door, I see Sapnap come out of his with eyes that clearly search for answers. I shoot him a smile right from the bottom of my heart, and he walks over to me so he can give me a warm hug. He's radiating how proud he feels right now so he doesn't even need to say it to me out loud. He pats my shoulder with a bit of force as if to say 'I told you', and walks back to his room, leaving the head over heels me to disappear into my own.