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angela was thirteen the first time she fell in love. she was cliché, falling in love with her straight best friend like every other closeted queer teenager did.
there were times where she’d feel a spark of hope that this was it. they would finish growing up, move into a tiny apartment together, and start their lives. it didn’t even matter if they were together — they could just be best friends, roommates, life partners. she clearly had gotten ahead of herself, but she was thirteen.
when she told her best friend how she felt, it was fine. pretty much all of their other friends knew by that point, so all that really changed was that she didn’t have to hide it. of course her best friend didn’t love her back — she was straight, and angela knew that, and it was fine.
they were fourteen and it was fine.
angela’s feelings didn’t stop them from being friends.
but still…
they drifted apart. slowly, angela’s best friend distanced herself from the rest of their friend group. angela just wanted her back. she just wanted her best friend back, with all the hopes and dreams she had held onto for so long.
it didn’t work out, but angela’s only fifteen. she has her whole life ahead of her.
angela’s seventeen and she thinks she might be in love again.
there’s this girl.
she’s so cool and angela is instantly drawn to her. she’s an artist and she’s a nerd, and angela is already imagining them slow dancing in their kitchen when they’re fifty.
this time, the girl she likes is queer. she confesses her crush and the girl says they can try it — she’s never had someone confess their feelings to her before, so she doesn’t know where to go from here. angela’s never had anyone want to move forward after a confession, so she doesn’t know either.
they take things slow.
they text and they make each other playlists and angela is in love.
angela spends her days imagining their future together. they could move to a big city, where they’d have a record collection and movie posters on their walls and they would be in love.
it doesn’t work out.
angela doesn’t know what happens, really…
one day, they’re texting, and then suddenly angela’s being left for hours without a response. then days start to pass, until angela gives up.
she may be in love, but she’s only seventeen. she knows she’ll get over this.
she doesn’t even know if it was really love.
angela dates throughout the following years, but nothing keeps her up at night like those two do.
in college, she runs into her old best friend.
she’s bisexual now, so it wasn’t that she didn’t like girls — she just didn’t like angela.
and that’s fine. it’s been almost ten years and, honestly, angela is over her.
that doesn’t stop her from thinking about her at night. that doesn’t stop her from feeling bitter, from unjustly feeling lied to. she wasn’t lied to, just because her friend hadn’t figured herself out yet.
it had nothing to do with angela, yet that was also the problem. angela wanted it to involve her. angela still held onto those dreams from when she was thirteen.
angela wanted to fall in love again. she knew she could fall so easily for her old friend, but she also knew that her friend didn’t want her in that way.
and that’s fine.
really.
angela doesn’t let herself fall for any “straight” girls after that first time. there’s no point — why would she go after someone who will never like her when she has options now?
she goes to bars and she goes to clubs and she flirts with women, men, and everyone else. she doesn’t have time for a straight girl. she wants to be wanted.
she fills her life with work — it’s what brings her the most joy, the most passion. she would consider herself successful, but more importantly, she would consider herself happy.
she still dates here and there, but nothing becomes serious. she wouldn’t say she falls in love, exactly. she still isn’t completely sure if she’s ever been in love, or if it was just the teenage hormones clouding her brain the first two times. she knows she’ll figure it out someday, so she doesn’t worry about it too much.
she’s a full-time employee and cast member of smosh now. she has been for the past few years. she loves it more than anything — this crazy family she has now.
she’s always had close friends, but it’s been a long time since she’s had a best friend.
but amanda is her best friend now. she really is.
and angela loves her. she really does.
that’s angela’s current problem.
amanda is pregnant and she’s glowing. she’s the most gorgeous she has ever been, and she’s so visibly happy that sometimes angela can’t keep the smile off her face when she’s just looking at her.
angela doesn’t know when it happened. there wasn’t a singular lightbulb moment where angela realized amanda means everything to her.
angela doesn’t even know if she’s in love with amanda. she loves her, of course. but sometimes it’s hard for her to distinguish her feelings in that way. all she knows is the last time she was this close to a singular person, she was in love.
angela’s in love with amanda.
she really just needs to accept it.
but she can’t.
she can’t do this again.
it’s been almost twenty years since the first time she’d fallen in love with her straight best friend. it hurts more now.
because amanda is married. and she’s pregnant. and she’s so happy.
and angela’s her best friend.
they’ve called each other soulmates in the past, but angela doesn’t think amanda meant it in the same way she did.
angela doesn’t think she’s ever met someone who got her like amanda does.
it’s like amanda was made perfectly for her. but maybe she wasn’t made perfectly for amanda.
which is honestly fine.
no one else knows how much she’s thought about this. she idealizes and romanticizes what they could be in the privacy of her own mind.
she tries to compare her feelings for amanda to her feelings for other people. would she like kissing them? does she want to wake up next to them everyday for the rest of her life? the answer, unfortunately for her, is always no. so maybe she is in love with amanda, and maybe she’s admitting it to herself officially.
she’s in love with amanda.
and she’s totally fucked.