I Can Only Imagine

Lately, all Selphy could do was think about the only true friend she felt she had, Lara. Lara was quiet; polite; soft-spoken; but quite the judgmental sort. In short, completely different from herself. She was her polar opposite in appearance as well. Lara had long, french rose coloured hair, large amber eyes and was relatively normal in height and bust. While Selphy was, well, not. When Lara talked to the average person, like Annette while she was delivering the post or Raguna when he needed healing, she would talk with an airy, polite tone. But when she talked to Selphy, her tone was always stern and nagging. She figured it must be because of how she did too much reading in her stuffy library residence and not enough of catching the suns rays. Or maybe it was because she talked too loud and too much. Or maybe it was because she borrowed money from her and never gave it back...

Either way, she knew she was an annoyance to her.

That was why Selphy just couldn't wrap her head around the simple fact that Lara was still associating with her, still lending her money, still reading her amateur mystery novels (and actually enjoying them, if her word was anything to go by), and still getting all worried about her when she went a few days without eating. If Selphy seemed to not care about what Lara wanted (like she said so many times in the past), then why was she sticking around? It made absolutely no sense to the bookish blonde.

Then again, maybe she didn't need to understand their friendship for it to be real.

Because Lara did enjoy her company. She would come over to the library to eat lunch with her (if she could even get Selphy to eat something), talk to her about how stressed out she has been with her job as a nurse and sister, while Selphy would just listen (Lara was the only person that she'd ever be completely silent for). Lara would force Selphy to do chores for her at the Church, or pester her day in and day out until she got off her butt and cleaned the library (only for it to become all cluttered mess than 24 hours later). She would make her interact with more of the villagers, walk around in the forest to get some fresh air...the list could go on.

But honestly, Selphy didn't really mind. In fact, she loved how much attention Lara was giving her.

She loved how Lara nagged her so much; how she wanted her to get out more; how she was so passionate about her work; how her stern, amber eyes shone when they caught the sun's rays; how well her figure matched her personality...in short, Selphy loved her. And it was becoming all too apparent to this Goldilocks that her love was stretching far beyond strictly friendship. But despite her longing for Lara, she knew it could never be. Lara wasn't just any girl- she was a sister. A member of the Holy Church. Sisters were allowed to have boyfriends and even get married- but there was a pretty slim chance that this rule could be bent for the girlfriend of the sister.

Nonetheless, Selphy could always daydream about what it would be like to date her best friend.

In all honesty, Selphy didn't think that things would change that much. Lara would still be her concerned, serious self, and Selphy would still be her eccentric, single-minded self. They would just be, well, dating. She thought that Lara would make a great wife, too. She didn't even have to think hard about it before she visualized Lara cursing under her breath over a recipe she just couldn't get right, or making sure her husband didn't forget any of their important "married couple" dates on the calender, like their wedding anniversary. Oh, how many times Selphy bit her lip whenever Lara would come striding into her book-shelved cavern, ranting on about how much of a mess she'd made. Biting her lip held back her instinct to just blurt out how much she wanted to just throw her book away and kiss her right then and there. But she couldn't. She just couldn't jeopardize their friendship like that.

Because if anything, their friendship was the only thing that really kept her alive.