I feel like I’m in one of those cheesy and dramatic romance movies that I never finish watching.
She told me her heart was beating fast; she was nervous and blushing rapidly. I was already on the train but she grabbed my shirt from behind and pulled me off it, back towards her. I turned and she cuffed her hands together, wanting to tell me a secret. I looked at her as I leaned down, but she avoided eye contact. Her whisper tickled my ear; “I like you”. She pushed me away and the crowd got me back onto the train. When I turned to look at her I couldn’t catch a glimpse of her face, she was pacing away on the platform covering her nose with her hands.
I hadn’t seen it coming, she was supposed to have a boyfriend. I never planned how I would reject somebody before, let alone my best friend. Since when did she like me? What did she mean when she said so? I had told her I was asexual.
When I got home I sent Pear a message telling her that, being aromantic, I don’t fall in love with people that way and that I couldn’t really return her feelings. I was hoping to have this conversation in person, but summer holidays have arrived and I won’t be seeing her in at least a month.
She confessed that she had fallen in love with me when we first met, but then she went out with a boy to sort out her sexuality and feelings.
She knows I’ll give her everything I can, but I don’t have what she wants. I will never know what she feels, I won’t understand the endless nights she spends thinking of me, the butterflies she says I make her feel, what she thinks of when she sees me. I am not what she needs.
I never thought it would be this painful to not love someone. She is nice, funny, clever and beautiful. She knows how to draw. Her laugh is gorgeous. She complements me every day. She reads the same books I do. She notices all the little things I’m not sharp enough to see. We have so many tastes in common. She brightens up my day. Is she not perfect enough for me to love?