i can’t stop how i’m feelin’ it’s like i need you
sometimes she wishes she wasn’t so afraid to speak up (but other times, she wishes she could shut up too)
it starts off as a simple crush, something that was never meant to happen. she jokes with her best friends that she might like someone. someone that she wasn’t even close to. someone she thought was so far out of her reach that it might be funny to joke about liking him. she starts paying extra attention to him, finding things that she could like about it and talking to her friends about it as if it was something real.
(it wasn’t.)
she doesn’t realize how far the joke’s gone until her older brother starts asking her about it during the swim practices, and when she realizes that people are actually in on the little joke she had started with her two best friends. the constant teasing of her and her little crush are bombarding her from all sides and she’s not sure how to stop it. so she sarcastically tells everyone that yes she’s madly in love with the swim captain, even covering her cheeks and glancing in his direction and shushing everyone as he glances over, calling them to do another drill.
it doesn’t occur to her that her cheeks are indeed warm under her palms.
–
making new friends had never been an issue for her, considering her upbeat personality and the fact that she liked to talk to people to get her mind off of things. think of it as therapy, she had compared it to once whilst talking to her brother. people like to do things that are calming, and it makes me feel better when i talk to people.
until, of course, she becomes friends with the captain’s twin sister. she’s not aware of it at first, having taken the last name similarity lightly, as a coincidence considering that she had never looked that far into his history about whether he had siblings or not – she wasn’t a stalker. it takes a while before it clicks, her friend having proposed a competition of seeing who could steal the most beanies and hoodies from their brothers without them noticing.
(she would’ve won.)
but, curious as ever, she had asked who it was, getting a simple answer.
“james grayson.”
what?
–
it creeps up on her slowly, quiet and mysterious until she finds that she’s constantly thinking about him. about what hes doing, about who he’s talking to, about whether she should approach him at swim practice. it’s so stupid and it’s even more stupid because of the fact that it had never been meant to become something this bad for her.
she thinks it’s rather funny, how something that had started as an innocent joke had become something this crazy. she had found him attractive, of course, who wouldn’t, but she hadn’t exactly liked it. it had always been something fun to talk about, considering her friends both had things that she could make fun of. they were both princesses for god’s sake, and she, of course, had grown up in a completely different world than the two of them. she had grown up, raised by two soldiers who weren’t finished being soldiers, trained to never give up a battle if there was hope left and she’s lost in thought about this as she kicks her feet in the water, sitting on the edge of the pool when something cool is tapped against her shoulder. she thinks she’s definitely going crazy, thinking crushes were stupid and wondering if they were called crushes for the feeling of how her heart felt when she glances up only to see him.
tall and handsome, much taller than her, crouching next to her and offering her a water bottle. he looks gorgeous, her mind has enough energy left to think, wondering if she’s seeing some sort of angel and it takes a moment before she can accept the water bottle and murmur a word of thanks.
he says something offhandedly, something about her doing well and improving on some stroke for some sort of swim and she watches as his eyebrows furrow, as his adam’s apple bobs in his throat when he swallows and she tries to remember how to function. it takes almost too long for her to realize she hasn’t opened the water bottle, which she hastily does and takes a glug from, promptly choking only for him to glance over and pat her on the back.
all she can think about is how warm his hands feel.
“be more careful,” he says.
she only takes in the smile on his lips, the way pink flesh frame pearly whites and the way his eyes crinkle up in the corners. it reminds her of her brother, but in a good way, and she doesn’t realize she’s staring until he pats her head and moves to call out something to the group of swimmers.
her heart is racing and she realizes she’s lost the battle.
–
she takes to trying to avoid him, compared to how she used to seek for his face in the hallways. she hates how she feels warm the moment she lays eyes on him, how she feels like she might choke and trip and die and just make the biggest fool out of herself if she were to make eye contact with him. it’s so stupid, and just how the hell had this happened from a petty joke?
she starts avoiding swim meets and practices, not wanting to be in the water or in close proximity to him because she had this innate fear that she’s going to drown if they make eye contact.
(her mind says maybe he’ll save her from drowning, but that’s a dream that she’s long given up on.)
honestly, she doesn’t understand why it seems that the more she tries to push the thought of him out of her mind, the more she seems to think about him. it’s complete and utter bullshit. that’s what it is. or, well, that’s what she’s trying to convince herself of.
–
it takes a few weeks, while she’s debating on whether she wants to nap outside or not during her break, sitting in the grass under a tree with the wind flowing through her crimson hair when there’s another tap on her shoulder, something cold being pressed to the side of her head and it’s like deja vu but she’s not at the pool and she’s trying hard not to think about him when a familiar voice greets her and she glances up, heart thudding the moment she heard his voice.
fuck.
“where have you been?”
nowhere, here, hiding from you and your goddamn beautiful smile, trying to get away from catching feelings but no one had ever told her that people didn’t catch feelings – feelings caught people and she was a victim that was helpless and lost and overwhelmed and she didn’t know what to do anymore. but she can’t say these things to him. he would think she was crazy or something and she doesn’t want that.
she glances up at him with a perplexed expression on her face, confused as why he was holding out a can of iced coffee to her and she takes it quietly, blinking at the label. her heart is racing and she’s trying hard not to let it show on her face, i don’t like you i don’t like you i don’t like you, if she said it enough times it would come true right?
“i broke my ankle again,” she lies through her teeth, looking up at him, past him, at a leaf blowing on a branch in the breeze just above his ear, trying to avoid being sucked into his gaze and maybe risking the chance of falling harder and she turns her attention to the can of coffee, opening it and taking a small sip. that was nice, she thinks, taking another sip and she feels a bit better. a bit.
from what she can see of his face, he looks surprised. she knows she hasn’t told anyone of her tendency to be accident prone – it’s so bad, that she even made the nurses in the infirmary promise not to tell her brother when she got hurt. it’s so bad that her brother makes regular check ins in the infirmary to make sure she’s not in there. she hasn’t hurt herself in weeks but she can’t bring herself to tell him that she likes him. or that she’s been avoiding him. from what she knows, he’s definitely just checking up on her because she’s a member of the team that he’s a captain of. nothing more, nothing less.
(right?)
he sits next to her until the break is over, until the bell rings, and she finds herself trying not to breathe too loudly in case he found it annoying.
what the fuck was wrong with her?
–
sometimes when she lets herself dream, when she doesn’t stop herself from imagining a future with him, she likes to think that she might be allowed to have a happy ending.
(as if.)
–
he graduates and she stays behind, watching the ceremony from afar and she wonders why she had never said anything. his sister is on stage with him and she watches silently when his name is called, applauding when his sister’s is. she had an in on him, having befriended his sister without realizing and she doesn’t know how she had let this opportunity slip past her.
she has so many what if’s running through her mind as she watches quietly, mute and dulled, tunnel vision for him and him only. what if she had made a move? what if she had said something? what if she had kissed him that one time they had sat in silence under the tree for a good twenty minutes? what if he had wanted her to? what if she wasn’t the only one feeling this way …?
the ceremony ends and she files out of the hall they had rented for it, smiling at her friend as she interrupts a conversation with bright eyes and a proud expression on her face.
“i’m so proud of you!”
“hush, you’ll be graduating soon too!”
“i’m going to miss seeing you around the school –” she’s cut off when she catches sight of him, looking handsome and gorgeous in his graduation gown and her heart jumps to her throat, maybe it’s her chance, maybe she should say something, and it’s a moment stuck in time when their eyes meet for a brief second. she feels like time has stopped and her brain is moving at miles per second as she tries to come up with what she should say, how she should convey everything she’s bottled up for the past year and a half and everything she wishes could happen in the future and everything that’s on the tip of her tongue tumbles out of her mind as she just raises a hand for him to shake, a smile on her face.
“good luck.”
she regrets it right away, seeing something flicker in his eyes and the maybes pile up in her throat and the what ifs build up like walls around her, closing her in until she can’t see the sunlight anymore and the onlys become like sand, bearing down on her in the giant hourglass of life that she finds herself in the bottom of, wading through the never ending grains, trying to find a way to his smile. (or maybe to his heart.)
but, there’s no way out.
she’s lost this battle. and the war.
watching as he walks away, as more and more people block her sight of his back, and she feels the distance growing between them as the wind pushes at the hem of her skirt and her hair out of her face, she wonders whether she made the right choice.
is it better to regret something you did, or to regret not doing it at all?