I sit on the cold tile floor, next to the tub, watching the shower fill with steam. My body feels like it’s been run over front and back. My eyes focus on the drops of water on the glass door, watching one turn into over a hundred. “He’ll never look at you like that,” I whisper out the words, rubbing the tear off my cheek. “So stupid,” I tell myself, peeling myself off the floor. How the fuck could I ever tell him that I am in love with him? I try to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, but all that comes out is another sob. I can’t even picture how I would be able to tell him. How it would change everything, not just for me, but also for him. For the family. “God.” I put my head back and close my eyes. How the fuck would I be able to tell my family that I was in love with him? What the fuck would people even say? We grew up together. He’s my family. Granted, he’s not blood-related to me, but we grew up together. Side by side from when he was adopted at eight years old, and I was five.
Every single memory I have is with him beside me. Learning how to ski and almost breaking my face, he was there. Family vacation of us sneaking off to drink on the beach and then laughing until we had tears running down our faces. When I was going to prom, and my date flaked on me at the last minute, he put on a suit and took me to prom.
Every single memory has a story with him in it. Every single milestone is with him beside me. He knows everything about me, except this. Except for the fact I am in love with him.
I undress and step into the shower, the hot water hitting me feels like pellets of ice. My body trembles, and I have to sit down. I put my head forward on my knees as the hot water tries to heat my body that has turned to ice inside. How could I be so stupid? It’s the only thing going through my head. To fall in love with him, I mean, in all honesty, I didn’t even know it until it hit me like a car hitting a brick wall.
It was during Michael’s wedding that it suddenly dawned on me. When we walked back down the aisle, his arm around my shoulder as I held Jamieson in my arms. I looked over at him, and it just came to me. That I was head over heels in love with him, so I did what I thought was the only thing to do. I stopped calling him every day, I stopped texting him fifty times a day, and instead, I threw myself into the dating pool of New York. I was on all the apps—Tinder, Bumble, Elite Singles, Zoosk. You name it, I signed up for it, but every single date I went on only showed me that I was in love with Dylan.
After the dating apps failed or, better yet, crashed and burned, I did the blind dates; I went on any date that my friends fixed me up with. I would go on double dates; I went through it for three fucking years. Three years I went through this phase, three years of being the life of the party when deep down inside, I was the most miserable, unhappy person in the room. I faked it until I finally gave in and stopped fucking dating and just let the universe take control of it. But instead of delivering me my Mr. Right, it pushed Dylan into my face once again. Showing me that the man I loved was right in front of my face this whole time. So I did the only thing I could. I decided to put more distance between us, and I moved to Dallas.
I turn my head on my knees, and the warm water is running cold now. Getting up, I turn off the water and grab the thick white plush towel and wrap one around my hair and another around my body. Walking to my closet, I slip on my pair of pj shorts with a T-shirt. Then going back into the bathroom to brush out my hair, I look at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes are puffy and bloodshot, and the tip of my nose is red. There is no mistake that I was crying, and I don’t even have an excuse if he came knocking on my door and asked me.
I braid my hair on one side and shut off the lights before going to bed. Walking to the wall-to-wall windows in front of my bed, I look out at the stars blinking in the sky. “Help me,” I ask the universe. “Forget about him. Make me fall out of love with him.” I fold my arms over my chest and turn back to my bed.