I don't know what I was thinking. Matt and I had been friends since I was in 3rd grade. I still remember meeting him while walking home from school. But now…we were screwing around. I was cheating on my boyfriend with him. All the time we'd fuck in his car and pretend like nothing happened. And now I was getting feelings for him. Real feelings. How could this even happen?

I was sitting on my roof while trying to think all of this out, but it was cold. I was freezing. I always went to the roof because it was the only place no one would bug me. Or so I thought. I was taking a drag of my cigarette when I heard something behind me. A rustling sound and some grunts from a person. It sounded like they were trying to get up on the roof.

"Oi! Some help here?" I heard his voice. I sighed and crawled over to the other side of the roof, the cigarette still in my mouth.

There was Matt. Trying his hardest to get up on the roof.

I helped him up quickly then crawled back over to where I was sitting and took a drag of the cigarette.

Matt crawled over and sat beside me. He pulled the cigarette out of mouth, quite rudely. "Y'know, Janie, you're seventeen. You shouldn't be smoking."

"So what? You smoke." I replied sourly and grabbed the cigarette out of his hand.

"Yeah, well, I'm twenty." He smiled and snatched the cigarette. "You're done smoking for today." He threw it off the roof.

"Matty! Ugh." I groaned. "That was incredibly rude." I turned away from him.

"Jesus, I was just being a shit." He laughed. His laughter faded when I didn't respond. "Janie, what's wrong?"

I couldn't exactly talk to him about what I was feeling. He wouldn't take it well. This whole situation was becoming stressful. Seeing Matt every day was hard for me because of my feelings. I had been holding it all in, and now I couldn't any longer. I could feel the hot tears spilling down my cheeks.

I sniffled and started to move away to get off the roof. Matt's arm caught me though and pulled me back so I was pitifully sliding on my butt across the roof. Matt brought me right back beside him, but I was facing the opposite way now. I buried my face in my hands as if that would stop the tears.

"Janie! What is going on? You act really cold toward me and now you're in tears. What did I do?" Matt asked, his face clouded with concern.

"You didn't do anything!" I mumbled into my hands. "I'm just pathetic."

"No, you're not." Matt said, pulling my arms away from my face. I was shivering, so he put his leather jacket around me and put his arm around me to pull me into his side. He had no idea how much this was killing him and I started bawling. "What did I do now?!" he asked, exasperated.

"Nothing!" I said clutching onto him.

"You need to tell me what's going on. You're obviously not okay."

"No,"

"Janie. Now."

"Fine! I'm in love with you and it's killing me every day and I don't want to hurt Ian anymore. I can't do it. And it hurts just to be around you. When we're not fucking, you pretend like nothing ever happened. It sucks. It's the worst feeling I've ever had to deal with. Is that what you wanted to hear?!" I snapped.

He just looked at me, stunned for a moment. "Janie…I…"

"Yeah, I don't know what I was expecting. We would never work. You have to focus on the band and I have to stay here. But I can't screw around with you anymore. It's just not a good id –" Matt grabbed my face and kissed me. His mouth was warm despite the cold weather. I leaned into his familiar smell and grasped onto his jacket to pull him closer. His hands got tangled in my long brown hair as he held me to him.

I broke apart the kiss. "What was that?" I asked, frustrated. I had just told him I couldn't fuck around with him anymore. "I just said –"

"Damn it, Janie! I know what you said. I don't want you to cheat on Ian anymore with me. I want to be with you. I kissed you, well, because I've been feeling the same way, Janie."

"Wh-what? How? If you're in love with me, why do you pretend like nothing has happened when we had sex? Do you realize how much that hurts?"

"I felt bad. I thought I would hurt you if I said anything. I thought you loved Ian, and I wasn't about to break you two up!"

"Were you thinking about that the first night you fucked me?" I snapped.

"I got caught up in my feelings. I knew you were unsatisfied with Ian at the time, and you wanted to fuck too! I didn't think it would turn into what it did. I felt terrible the whole time, but I loved you too much to stop. It was the only way you would be with me."

"You could've said something."

"You could have, too."

"What do we do, Matty?"

"Well, we could be together."

"But you have the band to worry about. You'll be playing gigs and shit across the country soon. I don't know how I would deal with that. And then there's the question of Ian. Matt, I've been with him for three years."

"But you've known me for almost ten years. And we can make it through when I'm gone. I've done gigs across the country before and you've been fine."

I laughed. "You think I've been fine. It was terrible for me. But I couldn't exactly tell you that."

"Well, we'll get through it. And you will have to break up with Ian. That I can't help you with. But he's a good guy…I think he'll be nice about it." He wiped the tears from my cheeks. "Now smile, love. I've never liked seeing you cry." Then he leaned down and kissed me softly, then kissed my forehead. And I snuggled back into his side and we stared off into the sky and watched some birds flying. With anyone else, it would've been boring, but with Matt, it was perfect. Every once in a while he would kiss me.