Rain

I stared out my window, heavy rain pounding against the glass. My forehead pressed against it as I looked out. It was cold, but I didn’t care. I was too entranced by the scene unfolding in front of me. 

I watched as my neighbor - and best friend - got into the car with her new boyfriend, a warm smile across her face. I could feel as tears started to form in my eyes as I looked on, but I refused to let them fall. It didn’t make sense. Why was I so upset about this? She was just my friend. Just my friend and nothing more.

Sure, I’d been in love with her for as long as I could remember, but it wasn’t like she knew that. I remembered when we were five and I skinned my knee playing a game. She had held my hand as we walked together to find someone to help and she had reassured me that everything was going to be okay. 

I remembered when we were a little bit older and we would play imaginary games out in the forest. If ever we created a scenario where we were married, she always demanded to be the husband. One time, she had even made rings for us out of cardboard and insisted that I wear mine all the time. I had gladly agreed, wearing it until it fell apart. 

I wanted to believe that all of that might mean that she had feelings for me too, but I knew that it was never anything more than just a game to her.

To her, I’d always just be the girl that she could tell everything to. The girl who would always be there to go to the movies together or to have sleepovers with. To her, I’d never be anything more than that. Only her best friend. 

I watched as the car drove away, staring into the distance long after it had disappeared. I pulled my forehead off the window and stared blankly at the mark it had made on the glass. I absentmindedly started drawing swirls in the fog left behind by my breath, my finger pressing so hard into the glass that it started turning white. 

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell the whole world that I was in love with her. But I couldn’t. I could only stare at the rain drops flowing ceaselessly down my window. 

I closed my eyes, thinking about the other night. I had almost told her. It wasn’t the first time I had almost let it slip that I loved her. I wanted to tell her every time I saw her, but I wouldn’t let myself. That time, however, I had come so infuriatingly close.

She had been telling me about this boy that she had met at work and how she thought that they had really hit it off. She talked about how he had asked her to go on a date and she had said yes. She talked about how cute he was and how she was so excited to see him again. She showed me a picture of him and asked me what I thought. 

My voice had broken as I replied. She immediately wrapped an arm around my shoulder and told me not to be sad and that I would find a boyfriend too someday soon. I wanted to scream that I didn’t want a boyfriend. That I just wanted her. I had been about to say that I was in love with her, the words right on the edge of my tongue, when she changed the subject. She was excitedly telling me ideas for their upcoming date.. I had to force back the tears and smile, all the while joking and talking with her. 

I had wanted to go upstairs to my room and crawl underneath my bedsheets and just cry. I felt so stupid everytime I felt like this. It wasn’t like she was my ex and I was watching her go on a date. I was just her friend. Someone who was supposed to be there to support her in all the things that she had decided to do. 

My eyes flickered open and I pulled away from the window. I walked away and sat down on my bed, my whole body falling backward as I stared up at the ceiling. I just gazed at the white plaster for a few minutes, not allowing any thoughts about her to enter my brain. I tried so hard not to think about her, but no matter what I did, the ideas kept spiraling back around to her. In a desperate attempt to distract myself, I opened my phone and started to scroll through apps, but I wasn’t really looking at any of them. 

My mind kept wandering to what she must be doing on her date. She had told me that they were going to go out for dinner. I imagined them sitting together in a dimly lit restaurant, her blue eyes lighting up as he told her a joke and the dimples on her cheeks becoming more pronounced as she smiled and laughed. Her laugh was small but filled with so much happiness and warmth. It was a laugh that I wanted to hear on everyday of my life, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. 

There was little doubt in my mind that we’d never lose contact with one another. That we’d always still talk to one another even if one of us moved a thousand miles away, but that did little to comfort me. I always wanted to be by her side, to hear her magical laugh every single day and see her gorgeous face whenever I wanted to, but as long as I didn’t tell her, that wasn’t a fate that I could have. 

I was too scared to tell her. To tell her that I had been in love with her for our entire lives. I was scared that she would reject me or be disgusted with me for falling in love with another girl. I knew that she wasn’t like that, but I couldn’t risk sacrificing what friendship we had.  

I sat back up, letting my phone drop onto my bed. I stared once again at the window, raindrops trickling down its surface and for the first time in a long time, I let myself cry. The sound of the rain drowned out my sobs as I mourned a relationship that had never and could never be.