I'm not a coward in the least as I've faced terrible monsters single handedly and wiped the floor with them.
I'm not weak either yet I wonder for a moment, hesitating, staring into red eyes, how to really find the words to tell him how I feel.
He's silly in an almost childlike way yet I find that I like that about him; I adore how even if he fumbles, he stays true to himself.
I take a deep breath, eyeing the way he so easily comes to relax beside me, easily adjusting this old routine we'd started, stopped, and managed to pick back up again.
I thrill over pretending, over teaching him even though he practically doesn't need it anymore, and I like staying close to him like this, watching the way he looks at me even though I still don't understand that yet.
I've never fallen in love before, and I still don't quite understand the sacrifice or exactly how to make something valuable out of social interaction, out of something that's changed from friendship to something just a little bit different.
I wonder if he can guess how I feel; is it obvious when I look at him now, what I've only recently come to understand?
"Bell," I mutter, standing confidently as if he's some monster to slay as I stare into his red eyes, emotions that swirl in them lost on me, "I want to tell you something."
He stands, half as if he realizes that this is important, could change his life though probably not in the way that my heart seems to want it to, "Yes?"
I wonder if he realizes the whisper soft way that that single word tumbled out of his lips.
"I like you as something more than a friend." How does anyone find the way to explain this feeling that builds up until it becomes too much?
"Like what?" His eyes look almost hopeful as if he's imagining the answer to his own question and likes the possibility of it, the taste of it on his tongue.
"I like you as one might like her boyfriend." Are these the right words as they leave my mouth, do they say all that I want them too?
"You do?" He doesn't seem to understand even though I thought that I made sense to him.
"I do." The words feel flat on my tongue as if there is no real meaning to them, just weak affirmations that clearly don't say as much as they should.
"I-I," He takes a deep breath, "I like you too, but..." Bell's eyes look everywhere, but at me which makes my heart do strange motions in my chest that hurt more than I'd realized they could; it's sort of what I expected, so it doesn't faze me as it probably should.
"But?" I prod, knowing that it might be a little hard to handle like the feelings that slowly grew stronger in my chest since I met Bell, and I don't want to leave the conversation here.
"I have something to tell you." Bell wrings his hands together and carefully tries to tug them away.
"What do you have to tell me?" I nearly shift my weight from one foot to another under the gentle burden of my heart twisting in my chest.
"Well," He pauses, staring further away from me before speaking again, "I am sort of..." Bell's eyes wander aimlessly. "I am dating more than one person, and so they know."
My mind blanks; I don't have any words for this at all as I stare into red eyes that remind me so much right now of a frightened bunny that scurries out of a stranger's yard.
"I," I take a deep breath, trying to find the best way to respond to him, "They know?"
"That I am with both of them, they sort of agreed to it, and they know that I really like you too." Bell shifts, eyes far away, as he speaks to me now.
"You're dating both of them, and they are okay with that?" I may not understand romance all that well, but I've never heard of anything at all like that working out. I don't know what this could mean for me.
"Yeah, they said that they would make it work, and so we all try to make it work together." Bell finally meets my eyes again after so long, still with that frightened bunny look.
"Okay." I murmur, watching the way he looks at me, deciding that that look in his eyes was probably something along the lines that he liked me.
"I'll have to ask them." He bites his lip, making him appear more helpless than I've almost ever seen him.
"Okay." I wonder if I'm saying that one word too much; I don't have any idea what else I can say, not to this, and if my heart wasn't burning so much, I'd ask him to not let me in.
I just want this burning to stop or for the world to make sense like it did before I met Bell Cranel and started to fall in love.