You, Me, and Charlie
You wonder what your face looks like as you watch Charlie jump into the arms of your best friend. You'd heard she and Nick had just started dating from Shania, but it turns out that hearing it and seeing it are two vastly different things. The hollow feeling in your chest is unlike anything you've ever felt before. It's not disappointment, or anger, or fear, and it's not sadness, either. All you know is that you can barely stand to look at them.
You want to approach them in front of the school to say hi and strike up a conversation like you usually would, but your feet refuse to move. They're perfect for each other; anyone can see that. Where you're short, she's tall, and where you feel most comfortable in jeans and coveralls, she wears cute skirts and dresses. It was no wonder that he decided to go out with her.
"Hey guys," you force yourself to say, somehow managing to close the distance.
He immediately turns all of his attention to you, smiling at you in a way you'd unknowingly taken for granted over the years. "There you are! Ready to go?"
"You're going to the beach, right?" Charlie asks, looking between the two of you.
Nick nods and answers. "Yeah, science experiment. Remember that rocket we launched into low orbit last week? It should be coming down tonight. We're going to recover the footage and go over it to see what the camera captured."
She pouts in a way that's far too cute to be anything but intentional and sighs. "I wish I could go too, but I have a tutoring session in a few minutes."
"Hey, someone has to look out for the children. I'll drop by your place when I'm done." You avert your gaze when he reaches down to hug her again. Seeing it once was bad enough.
"We should really get going," you mumble, already walking back to the car. The further you get from them the better you feel.
"Lead the way." He follows you back to the car with a skip in his step that was probably put there by Charlie.
Your car certainly isn't pretty, but it's functional. It was the car you'd modified together over the course of a year using nothing but the items you could find in the junkyard. The front consisted of a 1976 Mustang, and a truck cab was welded onto the back; mostly to help transport equipment whenever you had an offsite experiment to conduct. Nick had had the idea of making it run solely on clean energy so it ran on a combination of electricity and wind.
The wind idea especially had been ingenious. The faster the car drove, the more the car's batteries would be recharged using a turbine built into the front grill. As long as they were going at least thirty miles an hour the car could power itself indefinitely, but in the event the car had been sitting too long or they had to drive slowly for an extended period of time, they had electricity to fall back on.
"Shotgun," he calls hopping into the front seat, and you can't help but roll your eyes and smile.
"You're the only one riding."
He raises an eyebrow and smirks. "As far as we know."
This time you laugh at his dorkiness, and he joins you as you start up the car and pull onto the road to head towards the beach. On the way, you struggle to understand why you feel so uncomfortable. You think back to every movie you've ever watched and every book you've ever read and every conversation you've ever had, but you can't wrap your head around this strange feeling.
"Is everything alright?" he asks, snapping you out of your thoughts.
"Fine. Why?" you reply. You glance over at him, and your chest clenches when you see the concern in his dark brown eyes.
"Usually around now you'd be going a mile a minute about theories and possible outcomes for the data."
You're not sure what to say, so you shrug and turn your eyes back to the road. "I'm just thinking."
Another few minutes of silence passes before he speaks again. "Are you gonna share?"
You sigh and run a hand through your hair, having foregone your usual ponytail to let it hang down around your shoulders. You weren't exactly keen to discuss it since it involved him directly, but you knew him; he wouldn't judge you no matter what. "Only because we're best friends."
"Glad that's good for something," he jokes.
"Haha." You take a deep breath and let it out through your nose, tightening your hands on the steering wheel to steel yourself. "Seeing you and Charlie together made me feel kind of weird."
You can feel his eyes on the side of your head as he stares at you. "...Weird how?"
You pull over because driving while trying to work through your emotions doesn't seem like the best idea, especially as it's beginning to get dark. "It felt like my chest was caving in. I'm...not sure what it means." He's silent, and you stare over at him confused. "Nick?"
"I don't really know what to say."
"Do you know what it is?"
"Well...maybe it's jealousy?" He asks, shrugging.
Your eyes widen because it makes sense that you would be jealous of someone who could potentially replace you as the closest person to him. "Oh. Yes, that could be it."
He laughs a little and shakes his head. "I didn't think you could feel that sort of stuff. No offense."
"None taken." Because you don't feel this kind of stuff. Not normally, and definitely not this intensely. There'd never been a reason to before. You glance at the dashboard clock and put the car back in drive. "I guess we should keep going."
You're trying not to think about it, but if you're jealous of Nick and Charlie, then that meant on some level you liked him and now he knew it. The air was awkward as you drove the rest of the way to the beach and unloaded the necessary equipment together, and even more awkward when you lie side by side in the trunk of the car's cab. Usually during remote experiments you're pressed right up against each other for warmth, and sometimes you'd even share a blanket if you were particularly cold, but this time you're as far away from each other as possible. It'd never occurred to you before how odd your friendship might have seemed compared to most others; maybe because he was your first.
The sun is just setting as you wait for the rocket to come back down. Tired of the silence, you roll over to look at him. "Can we just pretend our last conversation never happened?"
"Nope."
"What?"
He lets out a loud, slow breath as he rolls onto his side to look directly at you. "I had a crush on you a year ago, you know."
Because of Shania and her penchant for chick flicks, you'd seen this exact scene before; two teens alone at night in an arguably romantic setting would inevitably get into trouble. For once, you sort of wished that she were here to ruin the mood as she was so apt to do.
A mix of anger and surprise washes over you as his words really sink in. "And you never told me?"
"You're not exactly the most...approachable person when it comes to that kind of stuff. For you, science is all that you can see-and I love that. Seriously. I wouldn't change that part of you for the world."
You blink because although you love science and devote almost all of your time to it, you didn't think you were the same closed off and socially awkward girl you were before Nick and Shania had appeared in your life. You had friends now, but apparently you hadn't changed as much as you'd thought. "So what now?"
He shrugs again and you roll your eyes. So helpful. "I don't know. I just started dating Charlie, and I thought she was the perfect girl for me. Smart, pretty, fun to be around..."
Each word he says drives a stake deeper into your heart, and once again, that now familiar emotion flares up in your chest. "I get it, she's everything I'm not."
To your annoyance, he only laughs. "Anne, you're a genius, you're beautiful, and I can't imagine ever not being around you."
You don't know where the air's gone as his eyes meet yours. "Oh." You'd been saying that a lot tonight. You're both on your sides now, staring at each other embarrassedly. He'd always been kind which was one of the things you liked about him, but he'd never been so straightforward and honest with you before.
Before you know it he's leaning closer, and against your will, you find yourself doing the same. You can feel his breath on your lips, and right as yours begin to part, the ringer on his phone goes off. You immediately separate, both of you pushing yourselves against the opposite sides of the car's trunk.
He glances at the caller ID and gives you a wry smile before answering. "Hey, Charlie. The experiment's going great, we're expecting the rocket to touchdown in t minus five minutes." He pauses briefly and looks at you again, a somewhat somber expression on his face. "I...miss you too."
You stare down at your hands because instantly you feel horrible. You'd almost kissed Nick, who was dating your other friend Charlie, and suddenly all of those cheesy romance movies Shania had made you watch over the years made sense. You'd never understood before how someone could betray a friend and steal their boyfriend, but your body had reacted on its own. It was the first time you'd ever not been in complete control of yourself, and it was terrifying.
He hangs up and lets out a long, slow breath. "So where's the rocket right now?"
You glance at your tablet, grateful to have something other than him to look at. "The chute's deployed. It should be beginning its descent right now."
You can feel his eyes on you, but you refuse to meet them. "Anne-"
"We should move, it's going to land here." You knew what he was going to say. He was going to apologize, say it was a mistake on his part and that he didn't mean any of it, but you didn't know if you could take hearing that from him.
"Anne-"
You cut him off and busy yourself with staring up at the sky. "I wonder what kind of data we'll find? Maybe it'll help our next rocket actually make it to deep space."
"Anne, listen to me." He grabs you by the shoulders and you feel your heart stop. His hands are warm, and larger than you expected.
"Charlie's my friend. I don't want to hurt her," you manage to force out, even though you're not sure you believe it.
"I don't want to do that either." He pauses then, staring down at you with a small smile. "I just want you to know that you're my best friend, and nothing will ever change that."
He pulls you in for a hug and you wrap your arms around his waist, resting your head on his chest that had become so wide over the past three years. You can feel his heart beating, almost as fast as your own, and you wonder what he's thinking as his fingers gently play with the ends of your hair. "I know," you mumble into his shirt.
And it makes you feel a lot better because maybe you were only worried about him not wanting to spend time with you anymore. Maybe you thought Charlie would steal him away, and maybe you didn't actually like him as something more than a friend. Even as you think that, though, you know it's not true.
You stand there for what feels like hours, but you know it can't be longer than a few minutes because the rocket touches down in the bed of the car-right where it was supposed to.
Reluctantly you pull away, because even though he's warm and familiar and everything you didn't know you wanted in your life, your curiosity and love for science will ultimately always wins. "We should head back and start downloading the data."
He releases you and takes a step back, giving you an embarrassed smile. "Yeah. Right."
You return the smile, and to your amazement, you find yourself feeling okay with just being his best friend. He'd always be there for you,even if he was dating someone else. Even if he married someone else.
You're okay with it because he's your best friend and nothing would ever change that.
AN: Struggled hard with this one, but I had to finish. First Annedroids fic?