Strawberry.

I looked down at my sneakers and waved my skirt around.

"This is so dumb", I kept telling myself. I'd been waiting for Jo for at least 20 minutes now. She wasn't late, I just wanted to make sure I'd be really early. The time was 11:59 am. We'd arranged to meet at 12:00 pm, exactly outside the St James park.

She'd be here any moment now, and that really made me nervous. I could feel my heartbeat get faster and my palms getting slightly sweatier.

As my mind kept pondering on the fact that I would finally meet the person I'd been chatting with online for so long, a cheery voice called my name.

"Lynn!"

Jo jumped from behind me, with a radiating smile. It almost felt like one of those cartoons where one of the characters has a faint glow around them.

She threw her arms around me and something inside me changed.

I knew her for a few months now, yet she was the only friend that made me feel so warm with just a hug.

I took a step back and realized: she looked mesmerizing! Just like a fairy. Her long, dark hair were placed ever so gracefully over her shoulders, her bangs just barely touching her glasses. She was wearing an airy white summer dress Maybe not a fairy, but an angel, I thought to myself. She looked just like an angel.

I couldn't find the right words, and so I ended up unable to say a thing.

"You look so beautiful in person!", she exclaimed. I personally didn't think so, especially compared to her. She looked the way strawberries taste, the way good coffee smells.

"I weren't expecting you to be so... enchanting." I stuttered.

In my mind the compliment sounded a lot better. Perhaps my lack of confidence played an essential role at that poor execution, but either way, it was quite embarrassing.

She opened her eyes wide in surprise and smiled, but before she had the chance to respond I quickly changed the focus of the conversation.

"We should walk along the lake!" I suggested.

She chuckled softly and agreed.

It was silent at first. Neither of us knew what to say, but it didn't make us uncomfortable. We were content just walking next to each other.

Jo broke the silence first. "Did you get a haircut? I swear you hair was longer the last time we video called!"

I felt really bad for a moment. Was that criticism? Did she just hint at the fact that I don't look as good as she was expecting me to look? She must have found my haircut weird. Besides, not all people are fans of short hair, maybe she just didn't like it. Maybe she doesn't want to be my friend anymore. I sighed.

"Is it that weird?"

She quickly placed her hand on her mouth.

"No, Lynn, no, you have no idea. It looks so good! I really like it on you!"

It took a moment for me to realize what had just happened.

Gosh, I can be so stupid sometimes, I thought.

We kept talking about different things.

Well, technically, I mainly listened to Jo talk about her day, how she got here from West Sussex, her funny experiences with the customers at her job...

"You know, you're my first and only friend from university." I told her. I felt sort of envious when I heard her talk about all the people she met. Did she go on walks like this with them as well?

"Well, that's not a bad thing!" she said. "Of course it's not easy to socialize when the only contact you have with our lecture and our fellow classmates is online. Besides, you don't have to have a lot of friends when you already have one that's important to you."

She lowered her voice and fiddled with her dress.

"I mean... If you consider me important that is. Because I consider you important, I just assumed you do too."

I laughed and bumped her upper arm with my elbow.

"Are you crazy? I've never had a friend who's been as important to me as you are."

I worried for a moment that the phrasing might have scared her. Besides, we've only known each other for four or five months now. She received it with a soft smile of relief, however. I chose to believe she felt the same.

I urged her to continue talking about her life. It was relaxing to walk to the sound of her voice.

At some point, while we were walking, Jo suddenly stopped and looked at a squirrel passing by us. She put on a menacing smile.

"You know... I've actually prepared for this!"

She reached for her pocket and pulled out an acorn. She then crouched right next to another squirrel and tried to lure it with the acorn.

"I've always wanted to pet a squirrel." she confessed.

I laughed, but at the same time, the sight of her filled with pure excitement, trying to lure the squirrel in made me feel all sorts of ways. Mainly, it made me want to caress her hair.

Are these feelings romantic? , I wondered.

No, she's just a friend. , I quickly concluded.

My smile was now gone. Confusion reigned over my head, these feelings were undeniably there, but I tried my best to shut them off. I thought I knew myself, I thought I knew my sexuality. I couldn't destroy this now. I couldn't lose my only special friend.

Overwhelmed by thoughts, I sat myself on the ground.

"No way!" Jo exclaimed behind me. I assumed she managed to pet the squirrel and didn't mind her. I focused on my breathing and tried to calm myself down.

I could now feel her breath behind me. "You know what I just found?" she asked.

I turned around to see and were pushed back only to be aggressively tickled by her.

"A giant squirrel! You're my giant squirrel!" she shouted playfully while I was gasping for air, laughing maniacally.

For a moment I worried about the rest of the people there judging us for having a tickle-fight on the ground, about the tears on my cheeks ruining my make up, about Jo's white dress getting dirty, but there was only so much I could worry about when her wide smile took over my point of view, when her laugh flooded my ears and echoed in my mind.

She wiped my tears with her fingers and helped me up.

She took on a sudden serious and concerned expression, which really worried me.

"Let's walk."

I nodded.

Again, nothing but silence could be heard from us. This time however, it was much more awkward than the first time.

Jo broke the silence first again.

"Hey, Lynn... I should probably tell you something. In fact I should have told you this way earlier. It was just kind of hard of me, you know?"

I looked at her and nodded. "What is it?" I asked.

"Well, it's just that I'm also attracted to girls, you know, romantically. It's up to you whether you accept me or not. It has been a deal breaker for some of my previous friends, so I will understand if that's the case with you too."

She looked at me, straight in the eye, with a pained smile.

"Jo... Of course I'll accept you. Are you kidding me?"

I wished I could have said I were the same. I wished I could have talked about those feelings that I'd felt earlier that day. But I couldn't. Fear controlled me.

We sat on a bench and faced the lake.

"You know, when I first saw you today, you immediately reminded me of a fairy." she told me.

My jaw dropped and I raised my hands in disbelief.

"No way!" I exclaimed. "That's the same thing I thought! But I did correct myself to an angel afterwards."

She smiled timidly and lowered her gaze. "It's the white dress, isn't it?" she said and laughed quietly.

We walked for a while longer and stopped at a stand to get ice cream. Jo let me pick a flavor for her. I chose strawberry. I told her that's what I imagined she'd taste like as an ice cream.

In return I let her pick for me. She chose chocolate. Said I reminded her of chocolate.

That made me quite happy.

The sun had started to set and the lake looked beautiful.

"It's a real shame we have to go now." I muttered.

Jo nodded and agreed to let me walk her to the station.

Unfortunately, the walk from the park to the station was incredibly shorter than what I expected it to be.

"Is this where we say goodbye?" she asked.

I looked at the ground, then I looked at her warm, welcoming eyes. I wished I could stay there forever. I didn't care whether my feelings would destroy our relationship anymore. I couldn't ignore them, I had to face them.

"Promise not to hate me if I tell you something?" I asked her with a trembling voice.

"Of course, you idiot!" she said and giggled.

"Even if I do something other than just telling you?"

She giggled again. "I will never hate you, no matter what."

I leaned closer to her and touched her cheek. She wasn't pulling away, which made me ecstatic. My lips softly touched hers, and I stayed there for a moment, afraid that if I pulled away I'd never taste this again. Her lips really tastes like strawberry.

I slowly stepped back. She averted her stare and covered her face.

"I didn't expect that from you, if I'm being honest..." she whispered.

"Does that mean we'll go on walks together again?" I asked, feeling the temperature of my whole fame rising.

She locked eyes with me and smiled. "I'll be looking forward to it."

We both laughed in relief. She waved goodbye and ascended into the platform. I kept laughing on my own all the way home.

Once I arrived home, I heard a notification from my phone and I rushed to see it. It was a text from Jo. A single emoji. A strawberry.