"Thanks for being such a trooper today," Gabriella tells me as she takes off her heels and tosses them on the side of the couch.

I took off my jacket and threw it on the couch and gave her a small smile, "it was fun."

She scoffed and pulled her hair out of the bun it was in and let her hair fall all around her. "My aunt didn't leave you alone for like thirty minutes, I doubt you had that great of a time. I'm sorry about that, she's so... I don't know, she just loves to talk and getting to know people."

"It's fine," I take a seat next to her and kick my feet up on the coffee table, "I honestly didn't mind answer any questions or talking to her. She's nice."

"She's nice, yeah, but I don't know," she pauses for a second, "whatever. Thanks for coming."

"Of course," I drape my arm around her.

Gabriella's cousin got married today and it was a beautiful wedding in Newport Coast and when she invited me a couple weeks ago, I was in. Definitely. Not only do weddings have the most amazing food, but anything to hang out with Gabriella. Every chance I get, I want to hang out with her. And it's freaking crazy. I never get tired of her. I'm never bored. I always want to hang out with her. And I always want to talk to her.

It's not to the point where I'm obsessed or anything... okay, maybe a little bit, but it's a normal obsessed. It's not like I'm laying in bed at night, itching to go hang out with her and feeling like I NEED to. Nah, it's healthy. I just... I really like her.

Actually, I love her.

Yep, I'm in love with Gabriella Montez and that scares the hell out of me because it's only been like four months.

But when you know, you know. And I definitely know. I know I'm in love with her and I want to tell her, but I'm just scared she doesn't feel the same way. I'm scared that I'm going to let her in, and she's not going to be there completely and that scares the shit out of me. I don't want that.

"I'm not sure when my parents are coming home," she tells me, "don't be fooled, they can party like there's no tomorrow."

"Oh really?" I laugh, "I can actually see that after tonight."

She laughed too as she nuzzled her head into my chest, "you don't have to stay if you're tired."

I am tired. I'm tired as hell. But I want to stay. I'm perfectly content just sitting her, my arm around her and her head nuzzled in my chest. It's one of my favorite places to be, if I'm being honest... and cheesy. Ha. "I'm good. Unless you want to go to sleep, then I can leave, I know you had an early morning..."

"No," she interrupts, "no, I'm fine. We should watch a movie or something."

"Okay," I tell her, smiling to myself. She doesn't want me to leave as much as I don't want to leave. I love that. "You pick."

She gets up and goes over to her DVD collection and starts reading off all the movies she has. And 10 minutes later, we finally decide on one- Sleepless in Seattle, because according to her, it's a classic. And also, I didn't really care. I wasn't movie picky. So we went went that one.

And then she came back with a blanket and we resumed the position we we were in and stayed like that for the next hour or so, watching the movie.

It was exactly where I wanted to be. Because I am so in love with this girl and I don't know what to do about it.

Everything. Everything about her makes me love her.

The way she scrunches her nose when she's smiling at me from across the room. How everyday we're not together, she'll send me a bible verse and tell me to have a good day. How she'll make me oatmeal raisin cookies randomly because she knows those are my absolute favorite. The way she shuts you out when she's doing homework because she's so in the zone. How she'll always stop to giving money to a homeless person, despite them possibly using them for drugs. When she laughs uncontrollably. Her smile. Her kind heart. How she just cares about people in general. She doesn't seem to have a mean bone in her body. How she's so proud of her faith and the God she serves and is not ashamed to talk about it. The way she looks at her dog. The way she looks at ME.

So many things. I can seriously sit here and make a list of so any reasons why I love her, but there's just too many, as cliche as that sounds.

Most importantly, I love her because I feel complete when I'm with her. Like, this is where I belong.

And that scares the shit out of me.

"Hey, are you okay?" I ask Gabriella as we're walking to the car.

"Yeah," is all she says.

But she's not fine. I now know how she feels. Or felt. I mean, we were having fun. I thought we were... and for the past ten minutes, she's been quiet. She hasn't really talked to me. And I really don't know what I did. I mean, I have a hunch, but I don't want to just assume.

So we get in the car, she buckles up, and immediately she rests her head on her hand with her elbow holding it up and looks out the window.

I make my way out of the parking lot and once it's been five minutes of silence, I try again. "Can we talk about it so we can move on from whatever it is?"

"What?" she looks over at me, "no, it's nothing."

"It's not nothing if you're ignoring me and not talking about how amazing your cousin sounded."

"Oh, so you actually heard her singing over all that talking you were doing?"

Bingo. there it was. I knew that's what it was. I was seated next to this girl who I actually went to middle school with and hadn't seen since then. And we were talking. That was it. Nothing more. I mean, I guess I could have introduced them to put her at lease and make her feel like I wasn't ignoring her, but it wasn't anything serious. It was like a ten minute conversation and that was that. I didn't even think I was really ignoring Gabriella.

I sighed as I turned down the volume all the way and pulled over. I wasn't going to have this discussion while driving. "Gabriella, it was, like ten minutes and with someone I haven't seen since, like, middle school."

"Well, she grew up nicely," she says before looking out the window again, "and friendly."

"What's that supposed to me?" but I know what it means. I mean, the girl isn't bad looking. She's pretty. And she was being pretty friendly.

Gabriella shook her head, "just drive, Troy. I don't want to sit here on the side of the road. I'm tired and I want to take a bath and then go to sleep."

Whatever. It was like a three minute drive so I put the car in drive and took off.

5 minutes later, I was pulling up to her house and she was grabbing her bag and jacket to get out of the car and I knew it was going to be left weird and there was going to be tension there and I really, really did not want that especially since there shouldn't be. It was so innocent.

So when she got out of the car, I got out of the car and followed her to her front porch.

"Troy, I don't want you to walk me in, I just want to go inside, take a bath and go to sleep. I'll talk to you later..."

"No," I shake my head, "no. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let you walk away and think about something you're making up in your mind. It was two people catching up and that's that, okay? I didn't get her number, I'm not going to talk to her after this and I most definitely wasn't consumed by her throughout the whole performance, okay? I want you to know that."

She looks at me, doesn't say anything for what feels like forever and then looks away, "but you still talked to her without telling her you had a girlfriend. Why didn't you tell her? It's almost like yo didn't want her to know. I was sitting RIGHT there, Troy!"

I get it. I do. But it was SO innocent. "And for that, I am sorry, but really, if you heard what we were talking about, you wouldn't be mad."

"Whatever," she says, "I just want to get inside, okay? Thanks for driving."

"No," I stop her once again. I don't want to be that couple. We're well into our relationship, and even though she doesn't know I love her, I do, and I don't want to be that couple that goes hours or days with fighting. I want to nip it in the bud. "If that's the only reason you're mad, you're going to need to get over it because I didn't do anything wrong. Since when is talking to some girl so wrong? Please tell me that."

She turns around right away, "when your boyfriend is hot, EVERY single girl that talks to him is a threat, okay? THAT'S WHY."

Oh. Fuck. I never want her to feel like she has to worry about anything. "Gabriella, don't think like that. I don't even think like that."

"Well, you should!" she shouts, "are you kidding me? You're so far out of my league that every single day, I have to pray that someone better doesn't come around and snatch you, and let me tell you, that girl... she was pretty."

"You're so fucking crazy," I tell her with a laugh, "are you kidding me? You're the most beautiful girl in the world to me. And if you don't know that, then I've been a shitty boyfriend, but you are and no girl is going to come around that's going to make me look twice. I promise you that. I've never been more sure of anything in my life before."

She stops looking so mad and her face softens a bit. She drops her bag and then immediately comes over to me and wraps her arms around me, "I'm sorry, I'm just... you have to understand where I'm coming from."

I wrap my arms around her as well and kiss the top of her head, "I do understand because I feel the same way sometimes but you've never done anything to make me think otherwise and I'm sorry it seems like I was ignoring you, that wasn't my intention at all."

"It's okay," she tells me, nuzzling her head in my chest, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm so crazy... it's just, I'm in too deep and..."

"You have nothing to worry about," I tell her, realizing we've never had a talk like this, but she HAS to know I'm all hers. That I would never, ever think about hurting her or jeopardizing what we have. "I promise you. You can trust me."

She nods against my chest and then lifts her head up and smiles at me a bit, "thank you."

And that's when I should've told her how madly in love I was with her.

But I didn't. I chickened out.