A/N: No need to fear abandonment. This story is complete as of September 8th, 2018. Enjoy!

Confessions and Consequences

Chapter 1. "Her Confession"

The fact that I could potentially be saying goodbye to a friendship that had spanned decades with three small words had me shaking with anxiety, and the coffee wasn't helping. I shouldn't have felt nervous. After all, I had been secretly planning and preparing for today's meeting with Troy for the past year. In the beginning, when I had only recently realized what was happening to me, I teased with the thought of spitting it out completely improvised. It was a thrilling thought that sent my heart beating wildly in my chest and made my hands clam over in cold sweat, but I could never go through with it. That's when I started practicing and rehearsing exactly what I needed to say, talking it over with myself in the shower and frequently fantasizing about the best scenarios. Although I was satisfied with the words I memorized for today, I knew that no amount of preparation would change the inevitable destruction I caused with them. I knew that there would be consequences, but I never expected my confession to ruin everything between us.

With my sweaty hands clamped down on my bouncing knees, I watched the other customers. The businessmen and housewives casually strolled in and out of this small coffee shop off the corner of 18th and Broadway so effortlessly. They plucked their paper cups off the counter, plugged in their computers, and merrily slurped their morning dose of caffeine. I was already nauseous with nervousness, but the sight made me green with envy. While they got to continue whatever their Tuesday routine had planned for them, I was stuck on this uncomfortable metal chair waiting for him, occasionally reminding myself to breathe through the seconds until he would arrive.

The doorbell chimed and I slowly twisted in my seat to check who came in, finding him wrapped in his bright blue winter coat, rushing inside to escape the fierce winter air. He searched the room for me, appearing slightly lost, and I forced myself to raise my shaking hand up in the air to wave at him. He continued to glance around the coffee shop before our eyes connected, pointing his chin at me in acknowledgement. He walked around the display of reusable coffee mugs and the line to the counter towards my table. He took his seat across from me and unzipped his jacket.

He casually and obliviously asked, "Hey, so what did you want to talk about?"

As I looked into his eyes, I saw everything that made me who I was. I saw myself chasing the little boy with the gap in his teeth. I saw the young woman who so carelessly and unexpectedly fell in love with this man. I saw everything that has existed between us. I saw every conceivable future that could exist for us. Yet here I was, potentially saying goodbye to all of it. With my breath caught in my throat and my knuckles turning white beneath their tight grip on the cup, I blurted out, "I love you."

He nonchalantly responded, "Yeah, I love ya too, girl."

"Troy, I mean it." Unable to speak more than a couple words without running out of breath, I slowly explained, "I'm in love with you."

He chuckled, "Okay. This a joke, right?"

"No."

He shook his head disbelievingly. "You can't be serious."

I responded in shaky, barely audible voice, "I am."

"You love me?"

I nodded.

"Love me?"

"Yes, I love you."

"Love-love?"

I left his question hanging in the open air. He stared at me with a blank expression, blinking once, twice, three times. Please say something, I thought. He began to shake his head and avoided looking me in the eyes, glancing around the room from the brick wall beside us to the art behind me. Say something. He glanced down to the table, hiding his face from me for a moment before looking up again, a particular sadness displayed on his features. I was prepared for him not to reciprocate my feelings, but I discovered that something even worse was happening. He pitied me.

It pissed me off. I didn't need him looking at me like I was a sad puppy that he accidentally hurt, too. I didn't want his pity. I sprang to my feet and jammed my chair against the table. "I have to go." I snatched my coffee from the table and hurried out the door.

"Brie!" I heard him yell after me, "I'm sorry!"

When did I realize that I had fallen in love with my best friend? At one point in the long timeline of our friendship, the thought of loving Troy as more than a friend would have been revolting. This was when we chased each other around in games of tag and pretended that trees were mobile monsters, threatening to stomp the city flat beneath their heavy bark feet. We swam with each other at the pool, seeing who could hold their breath under water the longest, and played videogames on his Wii well into the early hours of the morning. Back in those days of our childhood, I would have considered kissing Troy to be almost incestuous.

When we reached high school, I wasn't grossed out by the thought of romantically loving Troy anymore, but found it rather humorous instead. I was so used to thinking of him only as a best friend that considering anything more would cause me to break out in a fit of laughter, especially when our new friends would tease us about taking each other to school dances.

(Oh how wrong I was.)

In college, I sometimes toyed with the idea of dating him, but that was when I was between serious boyfriends and just bored of being single. No, it wasn't until Troy and I had graduated college that my feelings for him developed into something new. If you're waiting for some romantic tale of the moment that I made this discovery, then I'm sorry to disappoint. Falling in love with him wasn't like the flip of a switch. It was process as slow and gradual as it takes for people to change. As we grew from children to teens to young adults, our connection morphed and made us into, as I believe, soul mates.

I suppose there were instances like bursts of heightened emotion when I felt like I was in love, gradually occurring more and more frequently until I arrived where I was that day. Like when he took a week off to look after me during the one-year anniversary of my father's death, and the brief thought that he cared for me more than as just a friend sent a jolt of excitement and warmth through my core. Or there was the time that we were happily drunk off our asses in the middle of downtown Miami during a Spring Break trip. The way the sides of his eyes wrinkled and the magnificent smile on his face appeared as he roared with laughter, stumbling against me for support after losing a fight with the bouncer. As stupid as he sounded for that, that was the first time I yearned to pucker my lips and press them against his. It wasn't until the time we hiked up a restricted trail at night time to overlook the city lights a few years later that I nearly did.

These beautiful moments that have occurred between us only show one part of my all-encompassing love for him. Understand that Troy means more than just the world to me; he means absolutely everything. He's everything that could tangibly exist in this world and more, including the supernatural realms and inaccessible dimensions. More than whatever this world could conjure up and what my mind could imagine combined. And sitting on this quiet subway ride on the way home with only my thoughts to accompany me, all I could do was hope that at least some of that could be salvaged.

…

Before I could twist the knob, the door swung opened and my keys flew out of my hand. Sharpay greeted me with a pair of massive, excited brown eyes and reached out to pull me inside. The door slammed shut and she roughly pushed me against the wall, ignoring the concept of personal space and leaning into my face to interrogate, "How'd it go? Tell me everything!"

I shrugged out of her grasp and shimmied along the wall away from her, "Exactly how you'd expect." As I walked around her to the kitchenette, she stalked me, keeping right on my ear.

Her breath rolled down my face as she spoke in such close proximity, "So he didn't say it back?"

"Of course not."

She incredulously laughed, "Holy shit! I can't believe this!"

"You mean you're surprised?"

"That you actually told him? Yes. I was positive that you'd pussy out. So what exactly did he say?"

"Nothing."

"C'mon, what did he say?"

"I told you," I snapped as my patience was cracking inside of me. I wasn't fond of Sharpay's curiosity at this moment; finding her interest morbid, comparable to those bystanders who gawk at gruesome car crashes. All I wanted was privacy as I dealt with the destruction of everything I love, not to have the broken chunks of my heart slid underneath her microscope.

"He really didn't say anything?"

I chose to occupy myself with digging through the pantry to find some Ramen for dinner instead of entertaining her with a retelling of today's tragic events.

Sharpay continued on the conversation by herself, murmuring, "What a jackass. You're better off without him, babe!"

I know she only meant to be encouraging, but her words stung somewhere deep inside of me, like flicking a fresh wound. The idea of continuing on without Troy in my life was tragic and painful, and worse, entirely possible. Worry and sadness soon unleashed over me and drowned my heart like a broken damn. I abandoned Sharpay in the living room and ran into our bathroom, locking the door behind me. Choking on the lump in my throat and tears streaming down my face, I realized that this wasn't what I wanted. I shouldn't have confessed my love to him, but I did, and now I needed to ensure that Troy and I would be okay. I had to know that everything would be alright. I took out my phone and called him. What if he doesn't pick up? I worried. What if we never speak again?

After the ringing stopped, but before he could speak, I cried out, "I'm sorry I told you!"

"Whoa, Brie?"

"I just wanted to be honest with you," I sobbed. "I thought you'd appreciate that at least. I don't want to make things weird."

"Brie, calm down. It's alright."

Collapsing against the sink, I frantically wept into the phone, "I just need to know that everything going to be okay; that we're going to be okay because I care about you so much and I need you in my life and - "

Sharpay somehow jimmied the lock open and whispered to me, "Are you on the phone with him?"

I leaned against the door to push it close, but she rammed her shoulder against it and busted inside the small bathroom. I cowered against the glass shower door in fear as she snatched the phone from my stunned hands. She hung up the call and dangled the device in front of me. "If I give this back to you, do you promise not to do something so stupid again?"

My crying subsided and a tense, palpable silence momentarily fell into the room. I said, "I needed to talk to him. I had to know that we were going to be okay."

Sharpay rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. Looking at me like I was an idiot, she impatiently explained, "Gabriella, do I need to remind you what you told him today? You can't tell a man that you love him one minute, and call him crying on the phone an hour later. You're overwhelming him with emotions. Guys don't like that. Guys can't handle like that. You're going to freak him out. I know you just want to be reassured, but Troy can't give you that. I can't give you that. Even you can't give yourself that because no one really knows what's going to happen. As hard as it may be, you have to wait it out. Let him come to you."

"What if he doesn't come back?"

Sharpay shrugged, "His loss." She turned to leave the room, and then hesitated while looking down at my phone in her hands. "I'm going to keep this for now," she said as she slid it into her back pocket and left the room.

I pushed off from the shower door behind me and moved to the sink to run some cold water over my hot hands, pooling some in my palms and dipping my face into the puddle that I held. With droplets splattering onto the porcelain surface below, I blindly reached for a towel and dabbed myself dry. I stared in the mirror at the stranger, the shame and remorse visible on her features. I gripped the towel tighter, my nails digging deep into the base of my palms. The reflection blurred as tears obscured my vision and I unleashed an infuriated shriek.

What have I done?

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Do you think Gabriella messed up their friendship as much as she thinks she did? Could you still be friends with someone after they confessed their love to you?