Today marks two weeks of the conversation Troy and I had after school where we basically ended our friendship.

And today is the first day where I'm having one of those awkward moments with him.

His dad's car is blocking his car and since he has a meeting in San Diego, he carpooled with a co worker but accidentally took his keys.

His mom's car was parked outside, but she left five minutes ago for a doctor's appointment and really, I'm his only ride if he wants to get to school on time. And as much as I don't want to sit in the car with him, I have to give him a ride. I'm not heartless.

Also, my mom doesn't know we're not friends ago so I really don't wanna have that conversation with her right now.

She's the one who came in to tell me that Troy needs a ride, that she ran into him outside and asked what was going on and blah blah blah.

"Thanks," Troy tells me as he buckles up.

"No problem."

It's awkward. It's so awkward. And I cannot believe it's gotten to this point.

My mom stood in front of the TV putting on her diamond earrings and fixing her jewerly as she asked Troy and I one more time, "are you sure you guys don't wanna go? They're gonna have really good food, dancing. I'm sure it'll be fun. Come on, come with us."

Troy and I both looked at each other and once again agreed that we would much rather stay here and watch some movies.

"We don't even know the girl."

"Yeah, well we know her parents and this is a big day for her."

"Mom, we're fine here," I tell her trying to look past her to the TV. She was blocking it and I really want her to move. "If you're so worried about us staying here, tell everyone to keep an eye on us then."

She laughed, knowing that I was on to her. She didn't care if we went. She just didn't want to leave us alone.

And not because she didn't trust her and she thought something would happen between us. No. She knows we're only best friends. She was just that typical mom who was in denial about having a kid who was old enough to stay on her own now. And she didn't want to seem like she didn't trust me by asking the neighbors to keep an eye on me so I let her have it and I told her she could. Just so she could stop bugging us to go to this damn party.

"Honey, come on!"

My dad comes down the stairs and my mom immediately rushes over to him.

And then they both approach us, arm in arm, with my mom telling us a list of things. "Call your grandma if it's an emergency that can wait. If not, Katherine across the street. Your sister is with Courtney and your brother is staying at Smiths down the street. You better not invite anyone over, understood?"

"Yeah, you better no sneak out and walk all the way to wherever you guys wanna go," my dad chimes in.

We laugh because duh, we don't drive so it's funny that he said walk. But we hear them loud and clear and they have nothing to worry about.

Seriously, we just wanna eat pizza and watch TV.

A minute later, they were out the door and we were reaching for our second slice of pizza.

"Where's your sister?"

"She went to a baseball game with her friends," Troy tells me.

This is how it was most Saturday nights. Just the two of us. Watching a movie, watching TV, going to the movies, or just hanging out. Once we got to middle school, things changed a bit. Not drastically, but they changed... we got new friends. So, we hung out with our friends separately. We hung out with them together. But we always, always, always set one day of the weekend aside to hang out just the two of us. And we chose Saturday night.

No matter what I'm starting to feel for him, no matter how cute I think he's getting, this will never change: our friendship. I can't let it change.

He is one of the most important people in my life and the one person who I can do absolutely nothing with.

"You realize we haven't said anything to each other in, like, twenty minutes?"

"What?"

"We've been silent this whole time."

Oh. I guess we have. Ha. That's how it is. that's how it's been. But I guess we've just never noticed it. We're that comfortable with each other. "I was actually thinking about something just now. In a couple of months when we go to high school, we're gonna get a new batch of friends and I don't want things to change again. Not that it was a bad change, nothing happened between us, but you know, I don't wanna drift apart."

Troy looked at me weirdly. Like, I was talking crazy. "We're not gonna drift apart. We live right next door to each other, remember?"

"I know, but you know how high school is, you get caught up... you're probably gonna get a girlfriend," I stop myself for a second, thinking about how painful that actually was to say. He probably will get a girlfriend. Fuck. "Um, I'll probably get a boyfriend..."

"What's your point? That we'll neglect each other because of that?"

"Not on purpose, but you'll probably want to hang out with her more than me because it'll be exciting for you."

He laughed and shook his head, "you're crazy. You're my best friend for a reason. I love hanging out with you more than anyone, so don't worry."

Ugh. It's that kind of shit he says that makes me like him. As more than a friend. These past couple of months have been absolutely crazy. I catch myself thinking about him. I think about how it could be. Think about what could be. If there actually could be something between us.

It's crazy because it's not supposed to happen.

We were supposed to not be the cliche of best friends falling for each other.

But here I am, every minute that we get older, looking at him in a different way, a new light.

"Are you okay?"

"What?" I snap out of it. "Oh, yeah, yeah,I'm fine. I'm just thinking about high school. I know we jut got done with middle school, but I just think it's going to be different, that's all. What if we don't even have any of the same classes? So many more kids to divide into classrooms."

"Stop worrying about it," he laughs, "listen when I say that we'll be friends forever. Nothing is going to tear us apart. And you should know that."

I give him a small smile and a nod.

He's right. Nothing is going to tear us apart. Expect maybe these feelings for him.

So, I have to keep it in. I cannot possibly ruin what we have. I'm the one that's so worried about it so I definitely cannot let him know.

"You're right. I do."

"Gabriella?" I hear my name in a faint distance.

Fuck. I snap out of it and look over at Troy who looks worried about something. "Sorry, yeah?"

He didn't say anything for a moment, just kind of looked at me a little weirdly. "Do you not know that you ran that stop sign?"

Immediately, I hit my foot on the break. It was just instinct. I ran a stop sign? Oh my gosh. I could have ran someone over that was crossing and not even realized it because I was too busy thinking about old conversations. "What? I ran a stop sign? What happened?"

"Luckily, no one was around. You were the only car there. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I shake it off and put my foot on the gas, "um, yeah, I'm fine, I guess I just didn't see it."

It looks like he doesn't believe me, but he doesn't say anything else. He just sits there as I very carefully concentrate on the road. Thank God it wasn't a red light I ran. Just a stop sign, which could easily be as dangerous, but it meant I was going slower. Ugh. Still. I can't believe I did that.

As soon as I parked in the school parking lot, we both unbuckled and I thought he was going to get out right away, but he didn't. He just sat here.

And then he turned to me. "Seriously, are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"I know things are weird, I know we're barely friends, but if you're not okay..."

"Troy, I'm fine," I take the keys out of the ignition and grab my phone from the cup holder and throw it in my purse, "you don't have to pretend like you fucking care, okay? I'm not going to have this conversation again. You can't just come back here and expect things to be fine."

He shook his head, "that's not what I thought was going to happen. I didn't have any expectations, I just..."

No, I don't want to have a conversation about this with him. It's over and done with. I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's exhausting.

But something inside of my just went off.

This might be the only appropriate time to say EXACTLY what I need to say, so why not?

"You made a decision for us and that was completely selfish," I turn in my seat to face him, "I did the most idiotic thing, ever. I kissed you and I don't even fucking know why I did it. But I woke up that morning, ready to give you a hug goodbye and tell you it's a see you later. It was a stupid thing to do and there is not a day I don't regret it because I know that's the fucking reason you didn't stay in touch. I tried. I tried repeatedly, which I thought meant that you knew it was a mistake. But obviously, it freaked you out SO bad that you cut me out of your life. And I hated you so much for it. I thought..."

Before I could even say anything else, there was a knock on his window.

Samantha Reed.

Troy looked over at me, like he was incredibly sorry for it, but whatever. I was over it. I don't even know what else I could say.

I rolled my eyes, opened my door and hopped out.

He did the same thing with Samantha practically jumping in his arms, asking why he didn't pick up her call last night. He was tired, he says. And I'm not trying to overhear their conversation, but it was right here at my car while I'm getting my backpack.

"Hey, Gabriella," Samantha smiles at me.

"Hi," I give her a small smile too before glaring at Troy and walking away from them.

And as soon as I was a few feet away, I let out a sigh. I can't believe we were having that talk again. I don't know if it's a good thing or bad thing that Sam interrupted us because I don't know if I wanted to get it off my chest or not. It's obvious stuff he knows, but he should know how incredibly selfish it was for him to make a decision for both of us. Then again, he could argue I did the same thing when I kissed him... throwing everything off or whatever.

Before I headed inside, I turned around to see if they were still behind me and yep, they were.

Hand in hand.

Which hurt more that I thought it would at this point.