I want to kiss Helen Blackthorn. But I can't. Because that would fuck everything up.
We went to a concert the other day, a band we both love. Our friend came too. We sat, three seats right by the aisle, and screamed words to songs we had listened to hundreds of times together. We took pictures in the dark. We danced together in the lively pop songs. We held hands and she rested her head on my shoulder, and I rested mine on top of hers during the melancholy slow songs. One of the instrumental songs played and we sat down to rest our tired feet and watched the lights and images projected onto the set flicker. We leaned on each other and our fingers were just touching, her small hand lazily resting on top of mine. People talk about never wanting a moment to end like it's an amazingly exciting moment, but in those couple of minutes I was so at peace with everything around me. I was there, and she was beside me, and she looked so beautiful and the music that I had heard hundreds times was playing.
I know she loves me - or at least I hope she does - but never enough that if I kissed her tomorrow she would ever be happy with the consequences. Earlier that night as we sat in our seats and watched people file in in their chokers and their flannel shirts and their black skinny jeans we just talked. Our friend sat off to the side. Occasionally I felt bad because I could tell she wasn't as interested in the conversation. But we talked about everything and I found myself forgetting about the friend, because everything faded out, the chatter around us became the background music. All I wanted to see, hear, talk to… was her.
I realised I wanted to kiss her a while ago. Humorous exchanges occurred frequently in which phrases like 'I would date you' surfaced often. But it's all laughter and lies. It always ends with us agreeing with each other: 'that would be so weird though', 'that would be a bad idea'. Short conversations that give me hope. Short words to tear it down.
When I am with her, talking at fifty words per minute, my feelings are subdued. Subdued by the easiness of just being her friend. I revert back into the form that comes easily, easy after more than three years of practice. But then I go home, and there is no shield of friendship I can hide behind. I hear her voice singing sad songs or the melodies she has written in my headphones and a tidal wave of emotions hits me right in the face - in the heart. Sometimes when I am doing nothing, I hear her voice in my ears and it brings moisture to my eyes. I barely register why for a few seconds, why this shock of emotion overcomes me, and then I realise. And that makes it worse. She makes me cry when singing words of happiness. She makes me love her more with every note of loss.
How are you supposed to live your life when every text is a blossom of hope. Hope that this text, this one text, might be that text. The one you yearn to send, day after day. The one you ache to receive. I can see her name on the screen:' WhatsApp: message from Helen Blackthorn'. I can't see what she says. My spirits lift. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the text where she tells me the feelings I have are reciprocated. Maybe this is the one I long for. The long, rambly explanation behind it, the justification, the desperate glimmer of hope that her feelings just might be returned. But of course it isn't. It never is.
It's always 'Send me the pictures from today,' the day spent laughing our way around the market. I was surrounded by people, those I love and those whom I have never met in your life, but everything came back to her. Every question was directed at her, she was the one I needed the answer from. She was the one I needed to laugh at my joke. She was the one I needed to rely on me. She was everything. She is everything. Or maybe, the text sent says 'What page of the textbook was the french homework on?' or 'Did you see p!atd's new music video?'
Sometimes there's no text from her at all. It's just an online group chat called some ridiculous name, or a tweet posted by a celebrity I cared enough about to turn notifications on for. I ignore it. Because if its not from her, it isn't going to be it, is it? It'll just be the meaningless background chatter to my life my phone provides.