A/N: Sorry I took so long guys! Palexobsessed, thanks for reminding me, haha. Anyway, there are parallels between the present day story and the flashbacks, which are my attempt to explain them a bit better and maybe go way more into it than anyone really wants…but oh well!

Disclaimer: I don’t even own the computer I’m writing this on.

~*~

She paces around the room, searching for God knows what, while I sit on her bed, smiling at the sight. Whatever it is, she’s doing it for me; I guess that’s a good thing, right?

“Paige, what are you looking for?” I finally ask, hoping maybe it’ll get her to stop for a second, or better yet, get back to that moment we were in before Chad so rudely interrupted. We had been sitting on my couch, knees touching, staring, waiting for…something. It might just be my imagination but I think I leaned toward her, and I’m pretty sure she noticed and didn’t back away. Could that mean she was as curious to see what was going on between us as I am? Has she even noticed anything’s different? This is Paige we’re talking about. She sort of needs a flashing neon sign in front of her face to inform her of her own feelings.

“Like, a bandage or medicine, or something for your arm,” she rummages through her dresser drawer and I instinctively run my fingertips over the spot where I cut my arm when Chad knocked me onto the floor. I know I should probably be in pain right now, but something about the whole night I spent with her talking and dancing and laughing makes it all go away.

“Oh please, this is nothing compared to,” my voice trails off as I realize the place this conversation is going. I so do not want this night to be about that, “I’m fine, really. No big deal.”

Paige continues to look everywhere but at me, though I can see the look of horror on her face. She shuffles quickly toward her bathroom, returning with a washcloth and a fake smile, which I know she thinks is for my benefit; like it’ll make me feel better. Actually, it kind of does. I just like to see her smile, even if its forced. Someday I’ll be able to make her smile for real, or at least, I’ll try my hardest to. That is, if she ever speaks to me after what I’m about to do.

Wait, what am I about to do?

She sits next to me on the bed and pulls my injured arm toward her a bit. The place where her skin meets mine burns far more than the cut on my arm, maybe more than anything I’ve ever felt. I already know I could get addicted to this. But, lets not get ahead of ourselves. Baby steps.

I’ve got to do something tonight though.

My thoughts suddenly make me nervous and I twitch under her touch.

“Will you hold still?” she smirks a little, “I’m trying to help.”

“Being in your room, this helps,” I assure her, attempting to keep my voice steady. I can’t let her see how nervous I am. Nervousness makes people uncomfortable. Uncomfortable people tend to run away from things. “It’s quiet. No screaming, no smashing.”

“Nobody should have to deal with drama of the shoved over the end table variety, day in, day out,” she says sincerely. This is the most vulnerable I’ve seen her in a while, despite the fact that she claims to be taking care of me right now. I can’t help but wonder if maybe she knows I’m about to kiss her.

I am?

“Even me?” I ask, my voice shakes.

Yeah, I think I am.

“Especially you,” she looks surprised I would even ask that question. It’s like she forgot she compared me to ice patches and dog crap when I accidentally tripped her in the hallway just last year. Gee, and she wonders why I sometimes doubt my value in her eyes.

Don’t think about that now. Things are different. We’re friends again. You can tell her how you feel now, just like when you were little.

“Paige, I’m in trouble. And this isn’t related to any table collisions that happened tonight. It’s a different kind of trouble,” even as the words exit my mouth, I realize their overly cryptic quality. I’m not sure I even know what I mean by them. I’ve got to be more obvious, even if it makes me look like a fool. So, I lean, and this time, I’m sure she leaned too.

The zillions of thoughts that are racing through my head are silenced the moment my lips touch hers. All is still, like the calm before a storm, but in the best possible way. I know my heart is racing but I barely even notice.

It’s not a prelude to sex, like the kisses I’ve experienced in the past. It’s different. Her lips aren’t demanding or forceful or needy; they’re soft and gentle and sweet, like the frosting on a cupcake. Both of us are careful and cautious, but increasingly bold. The tip of my tongue barely meets hers, but I feel it like a lightning bolt and I struggle to keep from shivering. But it’s over as quickly as it began when I sense her breath hitching in her throat and she pulls away from me, gasping, leaving me cold and lightheaded.

“Um, okay,” she stands awkwardly and I can see the gears starts turning in her head once again, “Uh, speaking of trouble, or not trouble, um, uh, you take my bed and I’m gonna…I’m gonna sleep downstairs on the couch.”

“Paige!” I make one last desperate attempt to have a rational conversation about this, but she continues toward the door. I’m not going to go after her, if that’s what she thinks. I’m not one of her lovesick boy toys on a string.

“Nighty night then,” and she walks out, leaving me on her bed, hurt and confused. Does she think I’m not just as afraid as she is right now? I could use my best friend to talk to about this. I fight the urge to go after her by laying down on the bed. She’ll come back to me when she’s ready. I’ll never force her into anything.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Can I help you?” asks a stern looking woman as she opens to door to me. It’s Paige’s mom and she obviously knows who I am, but right now she’s successfully making me feel like a stranger; and an unwelcome one at that.

“Um,” my voice is shaky, “I’m here for Paige’s graduation party.”

“Oh, I didn’t know she invited you,” her lips form a tight little smirk, much similar to one I’d seen Paige make a few times when she talked to someone she didn’t like, “Everyone else is here already, out back.”

“Thanks,” I walk in slowly, stepping cautiously through the living room toward the back door. Everything in Paige’s house is always so perfect, I feel like I have to tiptoe to keep from breaking something. I could see figure of all my former classmates through the glass door, the light from outside contrasting with the dark of the house blurring them slightly. They were dressed nicely; I hadn’t really thought about it being that kind of a party. I suddenly feel a bit awkward in my jeans.

“Hi, guys,” I chirp uncomfortably as I step out on to the back porch. There are lights everywhere and the pool has little floating candles in it. I feel like grade 6 is a little too young for this sort of thing, but whatever.

“What are you doing here?” Hazel, Paige’s condescending shadow narrows her eyes at me, “This is a graduation party. You didn’t graduate.”

“Well, no, but Paige invited me,” I say without thinking because before this moment, I never expected my best friend to completely disown me in front of our entire class.

She looks from Hazel, to me, to Ashley, to me, and at several others as my heart rate quickens.

Say something. Anything. Make them stop staring at me.

“Please, I so did not,” she smirks and laughs and crosses her arms, head bobbing as if she was above me, “Its not my fault she has no where else to go on a Friday night.”

Her words hit me like a lightning bolt. Time seems to slow and I feel like I’m having one of those embarrassing nightmares where I’m naked and everyone’s staring, only its worse because its reality and I’ve just lost my best friend.

“But, you said,” I have no idea why I’m still talking, grasping at straws, trying to save something that Paige has clearly already decided to abandon.

“Hon, don’t embarrass yourself,” she clicks her tongue and smirks again, but her eyes are pleading. She knows she’s got the whole room convinced, except for one person of course, “Go back home and play with your imaginary friends or, whatever it is you do there.”

It’s a horrible insult, but she never was good at those anyway. At least, she wasn’t a few months ago. She’s apparently acquired a mean streak since then; one that seems to be growing with every fake friend she makes.

My eyes are burning with tears and I feel like I’m suffocating. My eyes meet hers one last time and I shake my head. Her eyes are glistening as well, but I don’t know the reason. Is she ashamed that she hurt me? Or just ashamed of me? I turn, and walk away, head down, past my former classmates, past her mom, and out into the night. I didn’t know I could feel a pain this intensely after losing my dad, but somehow, it’s worse. My dad didn’t mean to leave me, he didn’t want to, he just had to. Paige made a choice tonight; them over me, and she did it so carelessly, so easily.

I honestly don’t know how she could do that after all we’d been though, after all we’d planned to go through together. I wonder if she’ll ever think about me again after tonight.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I mean, I guess if you want to get technical, then yeah, I kissed her back.

I sit on the edge of my living room couch, head in my hands. Already, this has been quite a departure from the way I usually feel after my first kiss with someone new. I’d probably still be awake, sure, but I’d be smiling and replaying the moment over and over again in my head until I fell asleep. I can’t replay this moment though, for whatever reason. It’s scary. It’s weird. I mean, it should have been weird.

No, Paige, don’t think about it.

I contemplate my next move carefully. I know I’ll never be able to sleep without my pillow, but I’m sure I won’t get to sleep even if I did have it. Plus, that would require me going back upstairs into my room where…you know. I can’t even think her name in my own head. For some reason it feels like the whole world can see my thoughts, can see what we just did. It makes me feel exposed, open, vulnerable, even though there’s no one in this dark room except for me.

After a few more minutes, I slowly stand. I walk quietly up the stairs and stop at the door to my room. Will she still be awake, thinking the same things as I am? Or will she be asleep, dreaming about it? I don’t want to talk about it, but I do want to talk to her. Somehow I doubt we can talk normally again without discussing this, though.

I open the door just a bit and back away. If she’s awake, she’ll get up to see if anyone’s here, right? I’ll hear her footsteps and then I can just run back downstairs before she sees me.

Silence.

I peak through the crack and I see her, laying on my bed, eyes closed.

How can she be sleeping so peacefully after this night?

I tiptoe in and grab my pillow, sliding it slowly across the bed as not to wake her. She’s laying on her side with one hand tucked under her face. She looks so childlike, so helpless. I can almost see her when we were just 7 years old and she’d put a note in the backpack of the cutest boy in class. She was so nervous about it, but I’d assured her everything would be fine. It wasn’t until he found the note at lunch and showed it to his friends, laughing and making disgusted faces, that we realized he didn’t like her back. I’d never forget the look on her face at that moment. I wasn’t sure what to do to make it better at the time, so I wrote her a note of my own and put it in her backpack.

Dear Alex,

I’m so glad you’re my best friend.

Love Paige

Okay, it wasn’t Shakespeare, but I was 7. And really, what more needed to be said?

I thought for a moment about what might have happened if I had stayed in the room. She had slept in my bed many times before, many years before, and nothing untoward had happened. So why am I picturing all these horrible sexual scenarios that could have occurred tonight? What’s different? What happened? How did we go from innocent, childhood best friends to…kissing?

Realizing I was now sitting on the bed next to her, I quickly stood and made my way back out of the room. I knew exactly who I needed to talk to, and after all his late night phone calls to me about Marco, he’d better answer my phone call.

“Hello?” came the sleepy voice of my older brother through my cell phone at 4 am.

“Dylan. I have a serious question,” I say slowly, hoping he’s awake enough to comprehend anything I’m saying.

“It had better be serious if you’re calling me at this hour.”

“Okay, I kissed a girl. How’s that for serious?”

He doesn’t respond immediately. He’s either fallen asleep or is too shocked for words.

“Uh, okay,” I can tell he’s sitting up now, clearly understanding that a life-altering moment has just occurred, “Do I know her?”

“Pretty well.”

“Is it Alex?”

What? How could he have guess that so quickly? I have plenty of friends who are girls. It’s not that obvious…right?

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t really, but it’s the only one that would make sense. I mean, you know each other better than your other friends do and you just recently started being friends again, and I’ve seen you two flirt…”

“What? We do not flirt, Dylan. We’re just girls. That’s how we act.”

“Okay, you don’t.”

He totally doesn’t mean that.

“Look, Paige,” his voice turns a little more serious, “When you kissed her…did you like it?”

“I don’t know,” I reply quickly.

Yes.

“Well if you’re unsure, maybe you need to figure out a way to find the answer,” he says sincerely, “Its worth being sure, at least. Right?”

“So what should I do?” I plead. All I want right now is for someone to solve all my problems for me; which, now that I think about it, is very unlike me. What is going on today?

“I can’t tell you what you should do, but I can tell you what not to do. Don’t freak out like I know you have been all night, and don’t run away. Just, talk about it. I promise, everything will be okay. She was your best friend once, you know.”

She still is.

“Yeah, but I don’t even know what we are now.”

“What does it matter? Be whatever you want to be. Just remember, you have to live with it, no one else does,” he yawns, “Paige, listen, I’m exhausted. Can we finish this at a decent hour?”

“I think we’re done, actually,” I smile, “Thanks, big brother.”

“No problem, little sister. Good night.”

We hang up, and I lay back down on the couch. Finally, I feel like I can sleep. None of my problems have really been solved, but at least it seems like I might be able to handle it.

Maybe.

I recline and stare at the ceiling. I bite my bottom lip because it suddenly feels lonely. I guess it wouldn't hurt to think about what just happened.

~*~*~*~*~

Praise, criticize, or have a good day! =]