1. You pretend to be straight for her. You fall over her uncle and you stick your tongue in some boy with eyes like chocolate's mouth and you flirt with cowboys and you even let Farkle Minkus kiss you once. If she needs a straight best friend, you'll play the part, even with tears in your eyes and dreams of her ghosting through your mind and skimming past your lips. She giggles about boys to you and you giggle back with faux wide eyes and forcedly drooped lashes. It stings but you pretend anyways.
2. You kill anyone who touches her. Zay Babineaux flirts with her once and only once because you slam a foot to his toes and press him against a wall but you don't kill him with your fists. You slip a tongue in his mouth and claim his neck with your teeth. You tell him as clearly as possible with your lips by his ear, "you. Are. Mine." and he doesn't look twice at Riley Matthews again. It's a process you repeat enough times (she has more hearts lining her pockets than you will ever let her know) for eyes to turn to whispers and whispers to turn to tales. You wonder if other girls go through this for their best friends.
3. You cure her of her tears. Her head fits against your neck and your shoulder perfectly. Sometimes she cries into your skin or your hair and sometimes she just smiles and is in place. Your heart hurts more when she just smiles because that lasts longer than the crying ever does. The crying dies out with each stroke of your thumb over her hand and each murmur into her hair and when the crying is gone, she lifts her head to smile at you and whisper that she loves you. You've learnt not to say it back.
4. You let her kill you. She doesn't mean to but with each giggle of her latest affection and with each smile at the boys who touch her and with each tear into your shoulder, you die. You ache and you cry and you leave nothing in your trail. She makes you wish for innocence or ignorance with each passing note and the way she smiles into your skin. She pushes another needle between your shoulder blades as she knows nothing of the boys you kiss for her. You want to scream that she doesn't care and that she can't fix this, that she is what you need saving from. Tears plague your eyes and stain your pillow like the blood that stains her smiles.
5. You forgive her. She can kill you a million times over and each time you will forgive her. You have no anger in your heart that can she cannot kiss away. She will smile at you with those wide, half lidded eyes that drive the very depths of your soul insane because they make you swear she loves you too and you will forgive her. She will grab your hand and your fingers will weave together instinctively and you will forgive her. She will wrap her arms around your neck and bury her head in its place between your neck and shoulders and she will strangle you but you will forgive her. It will leave an aching in your soul and an emptiness in your heart and you will remind yourself that hope is for suckers and you will sleep with that picture of you looking down at her and her looking back with those wide, half lidded eyes under your pillow. She has killed you a thousand times but you will forgive her.
