3

I think heartbreaks are worse when you come to expect them. It's almost like walking into a trap, like wearing a timer around your neck, counting down the seconds until it all goes up in flames. Tommy was like that -- with him, you never knew which kiss would be the last. I had to find that out the hard way.

I tried to change. I tried everything.

I hummed the song as I walked toward my porchlight, flickering in the dark, the candle leading me home.

It doesn't seem to matter. Maybe nothing really matters.

I felt this sharp pain in my chest, a throb. I kicked a rock and spat out a curse. My foot pulsed with a heartbeat of its own. God. Life sucked.

Sometimes, I can't remember that was us.

I couldn't see through the sudden flood of salty, pointless tears. I hated it, all of it. I hated Tommy for all his girlfriends, and I hated the tabloids that knew all about him and his past before I did. I hated Darius for making me finish this album, as though nothing had happened, as though my broken little heart didn't matter. And I hated myself, for being such an idiot, and for standing outside, only a few feet away from my own house, sobbing to no one.

No one I could see, at least.

"Jude?"

Jamie stepped out from behind the rustling hedges that lined his yard. He squinted into the night, and I watched his face morph from startled to happy to confused -- all in about five seconds.

"Please." I raised my hands in defeat. "I know what happened. You know what happened." I looked up to the stars, the few that were hanging in the sky, as if they might have had some answers for me. "Hate to say it, Jamie," I whispered, "but you told me so."

Already shaking his head, already moving closer, he said, "That is so not what I was going to say."

"Then what, Jamie?" I said. "God, it's not even like you feel bad or anything. It's not like you and Tommy were best freakin' friends."

"No," Jamie admitted, this sad layer added to the deep brown of his eyes. He reached out and held me by the wrists. "But you and me, Jude -- we were best freakin' friends. We still are. After almost fifteen years." He laughed, then let it trail off with a sigh. "Man, fifteen years."

"And it's all over," I said. I could almost feel a hand closing itself around my throat. "You hate me right now, don't you?"

He laughed harder. "Yeah," he snorted. "Yeah, right, like I could ever hate you."

"You could. Tommy does."

"But I'm not Tommy." He said it with a shrug and a broken smile. I don't know how he does that, smiles so miserably that it makes you smile too and breaks your heart at the same exact time.

"Why do you do that?" I asked him, as more tears slid down my face, burning life onto my numb skin.

He absently brushed the tears away. "Do what?"

I rolled my eyes. "That. That smile. How can you smile when you're sad, Jamie?"

He shrugged again, still smiling that smile, still stroking my cheek. "I smile because I'm in love and it feels pretty awesome, but I'm sad because you're not in love and that's, like, not so awesome. But it's like good and evil, fire and ice. You kind of have to find the balance, you know?" He bit his lip, hesitated. "I guess that's why we can't be more than best friends, right?"

"We could, though, Jamie."

"Oh, come on. You're being cruel now."

"What?"

His face twisted in pain. "You know I love you. Don't. Don't drop these hints and throw out those signals if you don't mean them. Don't lie to me, Jude."

"But I'm serious. I love you too." I stared hard into his eyes.

And then, it was silent.

Being a singer, a performer, has taught me a lot about silences. There's the pause before good news, like your album going platinum, and before bad news, like a show getting cancelled. There's a silence between ending a song and the thunderous applause that usually follows.

But fame and fans aside, being a girl has taught me this: that before every perfect, beautiful, Kodak moment, there is a second or a minute or two where the world seems to fall away.

My world came down like rain at the height of a storm.

Jamie pulled me in, close enough for me to feel his heart racing to keep up with mine.

I would go into details, like how soft and warm his lips were and how he tasted like chocolate chip ice cream, and how his arms were around me and how he whispered, "I love you, Jude," in the one second when our lips separated.

And maybe I could come up with some big, bright words to describe the way we gently swayed with the wind, like two dandelions hooked around each other, getting carried away and blown off course, but always together.

I wonder if there are any words to define a kiss. Not any kiss, but the kind of kiss you've waited for your entire life, the kind you never really knew existed until you tasted it.

Kissing my best friend, being with him like that after almost fifteen years -- none of it could fit into a hundred songs or a million words. But if I had to put it into only three, these three would be it: Me. Jamie. Perfection.