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You leaned your back against the blue door of your locker, letting out a long sigh, half-heartedly listening to what your friends were talking about, biting down on your lip from annoyance, hoping it hadn't smudged the dark red lipstick on your lips. The source of your annoyance was standing across the hallway, her hands casually resting on her hips and her usual, annoyingly bright smile on her face as she pushed a strand of hair away from her face, so deep in conversation with PJ and Josie that she hadn't even noticed the way your eyes were glued to her from across the hallway, almost frozen to your spot.
There was an empty feeling in your chest whenever you saw her talking to PJ. You were certain nobody had missed what had happened in the game between Rockbridge and Huntington, but you were also certain that nobody had felt as gutted as you did when it happened. You knew that you had no right to be jealous, but you couldn't help it. Seeing them together made you feel as if someone had punched the air out of your lungs. It didn't help that Hazel's eyes seemed to brighten up whenever she entered the room.
When Hazel finally spotted you, she said something to PJ and Josie before quickly making her way toward you through the crowd, offering quiet apologies whenever she'd accidentally bump into someone. Leaning against one of the lockers next to yours, she smiled at you breezily, the awkwardly casual gesture tugging at your heartstrings.
"How were you last night? I'm sorry I couldn't make it after all, I had so much to plan with PJ and Josie and we didn't realize how late it was getting." She said sheepishly, and you simply nodded, feigning understanding. It wasn't the first time she had canceled on you at the last minute when you had made plans together.
"Don't worry about it. It was just studying. I can do that all on my own." You said, plastering on the best smile you could muster, opening the door of your locker to hide the clench of your jaw. It was true, this time your plans had been to just study, but the time before that it had been to go to the premiere of a movie you both had been excited for, and the time before that it was board game night, a thing you used to do at least once a month, a tradition now seemingly forgotten by your best friend. You knew that she was busy, but you had hoped that she wouldn't be too busy for you.
"Are you sure? We can meet up tonight, I know the test is tomorrow, but I think we-"
"Don't worry about it." You said, softly closing your locker door and offering her a weak smile before you looked down at your watch, pretending to see what the time was when in reality your vision was too blurred to see anything. "I have to get to English class. I'll talk to you later."
Turning your back, you didn't even let her get a word in before you walked away from her, holding your books close to your chest.
Hazel watched as you walked away from her, the girl's lips twisting into a frown as the hem of your floral dress swung along with your steps before disappearing behind a crowd of students. The dark-haired girl pressed her forehead against the cold door of your locker, letting out a sigh of frustration, the smell of your perfume still surrounding her, only heightening her feelings of guilt as she turned around, staring up at the ceiling.
You didn't share too many classes with Hazel, and for the first time ever, you felt grateful for that. But when lunchtime came around, it seemed like the moment you'd been dreading the entire day was now right in front of your face. Hazel was sitting with PJ, Josie, Isabel, and Brittany, and there was an empty seat right next to Hazel, and on any other day, you'd be sitting with them. But something in you was leading you away from that table, instead guiding you towards one filled with casual friends you'd made during classes.
When Hazel noticed that you'd made yourself comfortable with people she didn't know, a frown overtook her soft features. She watched as you laughed at something one of the guys sitting with you said, the girl sighing in annoyance as she took a distracted bite out of her whole-wheat sandwich.
"Why's she sitting there?" Josie asked. Although Hazel was the one who had introduced you to them, you'd become as much of a fixture in the group as she had, but something felt strange lately. It felt as if you were drifting away from her, and she didn't like that. You'd started to spend more time with your other friends, and it hadn't escaped her attention. Hazel was aware that she'd been canceling plans more often, something she felt guilty about, but she never knew how to make it up.
"I don't know." Hazel said exasperatedly, pursing her lips before turning back to her friends and clearing her throat, picking her backpack up off the floor and placing it onto the seat you usually occupied, trying her best to integrate herself back into the conversation, attempting to push you out of her mind.
But no matter what, she found herself constantly glancing over her shoulder, feeling something stinging in her chest whenever she saw the smile on your face whenever you spoke to your friends.
You knew you wouldn't enjoy the last class of the day.
First of all, you sucked at math.
Second of all, your teacher had something against you.
Third of all, you shared it with Hazel. The worst part? She was seated right behind you.
You'd hoped that she would be late for class like she usually was when it came to math as it was never her strongest subject either, and it didn't really matter much to her whether she was late or not. But today, of course she had to be sitting in her usual seat, a smile on her face as she waved her hand at you, looking at you with excitement in her eyes, beckoning you over to her. A lot of things had changed about her throughout the years, but the one thing that had always remained was her smile and the effect it had on you. On the first day you met, you were six years old and sitting alone on the swingset with a frown on your face and tears clouding your vision after a girl had taken your favorite toy out of your hands, when a girl with messy, dark-brown hair and a dress she clearly didn't feel comfortable wearing approached you with a candy bar in her hand, offering it to you with a goofy grin.
You sat down in your usual seat, immediately feeling someone tapping on your shoulder, and when you turned around, you saw Hazel looking at you with the same grin on her face, holding her hand out for something.
"Do you have a pencil I could borrow?" She asked, looking at you playfully. You both knew that she had plenty of pencils as one of the girl's favorite hobbies required them, but in every lesson that you shared, you'd loan her a specific one. It was a pink one with a little ball of fluff at the end of it, and she'd always toy with it throughout the entire class, the pencil managing to help her concentrate better on what the teacher said.
"Sure." You said quietly, handing her the pencil she usually used, an involuntary smile taking over your face while you watched as she started toying with the fluffy end of the pencil.
When Hazel saw the smile on your face, it felt as if it hadn't been aimed at her in such a long time, a thing she had once taken for granted. Her face suddenly felt warm, her heartbeat quickening as you turned around to face the front of the classroom. But as the hour went by, she couldn't take her eyes off of you, so aware of the calming scent of your perfume, the way your body moved when you jotted down notes, or how you'd stretch during the most uninteresting parts of the lesson.
Determinedly, she tore a piece of paper off of her notebook, furiously scribbling on it.
With only a few minutes left of the class, you felt tapping on your shoulder, and you turned around to look at Hazel with furrowed brows, the girl gesturing for you to take the piece of paper in her hands. Hesitantly, you reached out for it and held it in your hands, reading it over. In sloppy handwriting, it said, "Want to hang out after school???" with two smiley faces drawn onto the paper. You chuckled slightly before pursing your lips and writing something on the paper.
As soon as the bell rang, you placed the piece of paper onto her desk, and Hazel practically slapped her hand over it, pulling it towards her and reading it over with fervor, but before she could say anything, you were out of the door.
"I can't today. I have plans."
Hazel frowned, staring down at the paper in her right hand, and the pink fluffy pencil in her other hand.
You weren't lying, to be fair. You did have plans.
You just didn't tell her that your plans consisted of wallowing in self-pity and watching your favorite movie for the two-hundredth time while you avoided all of her possible attempts of communication, but the picture you kept of the two of you on your desk was basically staring at you, fully guilting you. Sighing, you threw a worn t-shirt at it, covering it up. You knew it wasn't fair for you to keep ignoring her, but you had no idea how you could upkeep your friendship when you could barely be in the same room without thinking about how it'd feel to kiss her. And how jealous you were that PJ knew exactly how it was.
Pausing the movie, you got up onto your feet, pacing around your room. "It doesn't matter. She doesn't like me. I should just get over it." You kept repeating to yourself, walking in a circle. "We've known each other forever. It probably wouldn't work, anyway. She's much better off with PJ, or anyone else, really."
It didn't matter how many times you said it, your brain refused to get her off your mind, and as you collapsed onto your bed, it only further reminded you of her, and of all the times when you'd dance around your bedroom, drinking the cheap beer you'd stolen from your father and fall onto the bed in laughter as music played in the background, or the times when she was staying the night and you tried to put on the homemade clay mask onto her face, but she kept scrunching up her nose or touching her face, messing it up and forcing you to do it again.
You couldn't think of a single place that you loved, that you felt comfortable in, that didn't have something to do with Hazel. Every weekend, you'd go down to the diner across town and eat junk until closing time, and whenever the movie theater had new showings, you'd be the first ones in line. And that time you found a river with glimmering water in the middle of the forest, the only person you took there was Hazel, and the first time you brought her there, she carved your initials onto an oak tree near it, telling you strange facts she had read about the species. Even the streets leading to your house were filled with memories, reminding you of all the times she had tried to show you a skateboarding trick, only to end up on her face, her usually comforting grin much bloodier. You didn't know how long you'd been harboring feelings for her, and you weren't even sure when you realized you liked her, but somehow, she had become the only thing you could think about.
You were startled out of your thoughts by a sudden banging, pressing your hand against your racing heart as your head swished around as you tried to find the source, only to notice something in your window. Approaching it, you furrowed your brows, opening the window to see Hazel, completely out of breath, soaking wet, and holding tight onto the windowpane. "What are you doing?" You asked, looking out into the darkness before you stepped away from the window, watching as the girl climbed clumsily inside, only to end up somersaulting and falling onto the floor, causing a laugh to escape your lips.
"Stop laughing." Hazel said, trying to stabilize her breathing as she laid on the floor before sitting up, starting to rub the back of her neck as she pointed something towards you, and when you looked more carefully, you realized it was your pink fluffy pencil. "I came to return this."
"At nine in the evening?" You chuckled, taking the pencil out of her grasp. "How did you even get wet?" You asked, gesturing towards the girl's soaked hair and clothing before pointing to the window and even though it was dark outside, there wasn't a drop of rain. "It hasn't rained in like, a week."
"Your neighbor has really effective sprinklers." She said, spreading her legs wide and laughing as she took off her shoes, throwing them into a corner of the room. "Why did you say you had plans?"
"I did have plans. I just didn't say what kind."
"Wallowing in sadness?" Hazel said, pointing to the television, "You only watch 10 Things I Hate About You when you feel like crap."
"I don't."
"Okay." She rolled her eyes.
"You don't know me as well as you think you do." You scoffed, collapsing onto your bed with a sigh, "Why are you here, Hazel?"
"Because I'm worried about you. You barely talk to me these days, and when you do, it's to tell me that everything's alright and that you're just busy." Hazel got onto her feet, walking towards the bed, looking down at you as you sat up, looking back at her. "I know I haven't been a great friend, and I've been missing a lot of the times we were supposed to hang out, but I promise that I'll be better about it. I miss talking to you, I miss listening to you, I miss the way you smile at me and I miss the way your hair smells, or how you always laugh at inappropriate times and the weird thoughts you have that you tell me all throughout the day. I can't stop thinking about you, and it makes me feel crazy because it feels like I'm just chasing you while you're trying your best to get away from me. Why won't you tell me what's wrong?"
"Because I'm jealous." You said, standing up off the bed, your eyes intently on her. "Whenever I see you with PJ, I can't help but feel annoyance just gnawing at me. When I see you laugh at her, or have your arm linked with hers, I just feel like throwing a chair at a wall or something. I hate that she knows how it is to kiss you when I've wanted to kiss you for as long as I can remember, and I'm so annoyed that you don't notice that I constantly want to be near you and hold your hand and touch you and kiss you. And it hurts me so much to know that you don't feel the same way."
When you finally said those words, it felt as if a pin dropped. As the words hung in the air for a moment, the room was completely silent except for the loud breaths you both were letting out, your chests rising and falling in an almost synchronized way. Your mind was filled with worries, about how this might just be the end of your friendship, or how she'd never want to talk to you again.
What you hadn't expected was for Hazel to clumsily press her lips against yours, silencing all the thoughts inside your head, her arms awkwardly wrapping around your waist as you snaked yours up around her neck, taking in every part of her that was possible as she pulled your body closer to hers. It felt strange at first, but when you got used to the feeling of her soft lips against yours, you knew it was like nothing you'd ever felt before, incredibly familiar while also brand new. Your lips moved together as if in a slow, smooth dance, your breaths mingling together in each other's embrace, and without saying a thing, you shared all of the longing you'd felt toward one another.
The taste of her lips was intoxicating, and you couldn't help but deepen the kiss, exploring one another with a hunger that felt as if it had been pent up forever. The kiss said everything that you hadn't had the courage to ever say to her, of all the emotions you'd hidden and the insecurities you'd felt.
When you finally pulled away from one another, your foreheads were pressed together as your hot breaths mingled in the mere inches between you. You let out a small laugh, biting your lower lip as you looked at her to see that she had that same grin on her face that she always did, her cheeks red.
"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that." You said when your breathing finally stabilized, pulling your forehead away from hers while still staying in her embrace.
"We should probably do it again, then." Hazel smiled, pushing a strand of your hair behind your ear before bringing her lips back onto yours.