I stroll towards the overcrowded lunch table where she's seated and slow my pace once I'm getting closer. I've been doing this more and more lately, just stopping myself for a moment and taking her in. Each and one of her movements and traits. Every single thing that makes her what she is and who is. Every mundane part of her that made me want to become her best friend and every atypical piece that makes me long to be more than just that.
She senses someone looking at her and slowly takes her eyes off the people in front of her and shifts herself towards me. An instant smile crosses her face and tricks mine into surfacing too. For a moment we don't say a thing as we block the annoying bragging and the insistent gossiping. For a moment all there is, is her and me and the space that's parting us. Nothing is said and nothing is done and it's all that we need. Sometimes the glint in her eyes and the sweetness of her smile in these instants makes me wonder. It makes me wonder if she feels it too sometimes. Even if it is just for the briefest of moments. Just the thought that she might come remotely close to feeling the emotions she evokes within me, is enough for me to not ignore it completely. To not force myself to not feel and suppress every sensation, every passion that surfaces with the simple thought of her.
To not be in love.
"Hey you." She rasps, finally ending the peaceful trance we were finding ourselves in. I slowly trudge closer to her, fidgeting the whole way there, feeling and acting like a nervous kid on their first day of school.
"Hey yourself." I reply with a shy smile, all the while tracing the ground with the tip of my red converses. She's completely shifted my way now, with her back facing the table of friends. Friends that mean quite a lot to her, but that she leaves behind so effortlessly when I come in the picture. My nervous fidgeting is still well under way when she effectively stops it with the simple touch of her hand. Her touch would've been more than enough, but she decides to hold it in her hand completely. Lightly swinging it back and forth in the process.
"Where were you? I've been looking all over for you." She says, the mid-high sun making her squint heavily. I manage to focus my attention away from her soft hand for a moment to look beside her, but there isn't even an inch free for me to settle myself. She notices my gesture and starts lightly tugging my hand, urging me to sit myself on her lap. I'm guessing she really doesn't have a clue about the way she makes me feel, because why would she want to make my heart race at a speed that is anything but healthy. She sighs in mock-annoyance when she notices my reluctance (when really I'm just helplessly frozen) and gently pulls me until I'm finally seated on her. My eyes are cast downwards the whole time and when I finally dare to look up my breath hitches and a barely audible gasp leaves my mouth. Suddenly her face is so close to mine, too close. Her cherry red lips are less than an inch away and it would take one spoken word, one sigh for them to delicately brush against mine. For them to fulfill a gesture, a motion, a moment that I've been longing for such a long a time.
"Well?" She asks me after sensing that I wasn't going to answer any time soon. I mentally shake myself from the reverie I was in and scold myself for losing focus in the first place. One of these days she's bound to notice the looks and touches that last and linger just a little too long to be of a supposed friendly nature. Sooner or later this whole pretense will shatter completely and every single part of me, of us will shatter with it. I'm just hoping it will happen later than sooner.
"Ms. Glass kept me after class. She wants me to tutor some brainless jock who needs to pass or King High's championship dreams will be ruined for ever and ever." I sigh dramatically, rolling my eyes for good measure too.
"You sure he doesn't just want to get inside your pants like the last guy." She laughs bitterly, wrapping one of her arms around my waist. I already mentioned just how protective she is of me and when she found out that a certain student of mine wanted a little more than private lessons, she pretty much lost it. She ended up getting suspended for a week and told me more than once (after every time I apologized) that she'd do it all over again if anyone would force themselves on me again. The thing is that nobody even dares to ask me on a date now, let alone take advantage of me.
"I don't know if I'll go through with it or not. I don't think I can handle another person who doesn't know the difference between me and I." I say as I lightly lean into her. She's wearing that apple-scented-perfume again I bought for her birthday and it's impossible to not angle yourself and breath it in.
"You mean you can't handle I anymore?" She gasps in mock horror and I can't help but laugh at her dorky-self. If there's one thing she loves to do, it's to make some lame jokes since she knows she'll always make me laugh. Most of the people around us don't understand our conversations or jokes because they're done on a level that belongs to only us. They wonder a lot about me and her, about everything that makes us those girls that cannot be seen without the other. We're a one package deal and you simply can't have the one without the other. And they've come to accept it. Every single intimate conversation and touch is something that has become completely natural in the being of us. It got to the point that when weren't being as close as we normally are people would immediately start jumping to conclusions and say that we had a major fight.
No one ever really understood our relationship because it was such a foreign concept for them. They did not know this intimacy between two friends, because they never experienced it. For the most of them friends were something disposable in this stage of their life. They could easily move on from one to the other and not feel remorseful about it. But they sensed that, that wasn't the case for us. They understood who we were and why we were like this. And that's where I envy them, because for me all of this is anything but clear. The lines of friendship and love have been blurred such a long time ago that I don't even know in which territory I'm finding myself in right know. It's been something I've been trying to figure out unsuccessfully for the last 14 months.
"Spence, you really need to stop spacing out on me here. I still like to think of myself that I'm not that boring." She chuckles quietly while shifting the arm that's wrapped around me. She brings her hand to the exposed small of my back and starts scratching me there ever-so-lightly. A chill instantly courses through the whole of my body and I try my hardest to strain myself from closing my eyes at the sensation. She knows me so well. Every single inch of body, mind and soul she knows by heart. Recognizing just the right time when to touch, to talk or simply just be there. She's the one person that might know me even better than I know myself.
"Seriously, what's wrong?" She asks quietly while searching for my downcast eyes. A slender finger tips my chin up and I'm met with those sincere and loving eyes again that no one gets to see but me. She might act all tough and bitchy sometimes, but that's all it is. A simple act. And she's chosen me to be the person that can peek beyond all that. She's chosen me to be the one she can be her true self with, because she's still afraid that people won't like who she really is. I pity all of them who might think that. I pity them because they'll never get to truly know this beautifully considerate and sweet person. A tiny smile forms on her lips as she keeps looking at me and the contagiousness of it is not lost on me.
So I sit there perfectly comfortable on her lap, with nails still deliciously scratching my back, blue eyes mixing with chestnut browns and silly smiles counting a story of their own by the overcrowded lunch table in that overcrowded quad that never seemed more deserted that right this moment. And in this brief instant we're both finding ourselves on the same territory with the same intentions and with the same feelings. In this moment we can just be without any other misinterpretations or hidden agenda's. In this moment there are no undeserving boyfriends or cowardly best friends.
In this moment we're just Spencer and Ashley.