One of the most fatidic days of my life had come, but unlike so many other days that I felt like it was one such thing, this time I felt readier than ever.

I had studied tirelessly with the smartest person I knew, I had slept well enough thanks in no small amount to cuddling her to sleep in a bedroom with AC, and I had also woken up with no problems for what felt the first time in my life.

Of course, it’s still me we are talking about, so all that confidence was wavering as I sat on my chair, waiting for my test papers to be passed over by the person sitting in front.

She noticed all of this and help my hand under the table, giving me a confident smile that made me feel a little bit better.

The test came, and I read the front page. Already, I was feeling like something was off.

“Now that everyone has a copy, begin,” the old geezer announced, staring at us like a vulture staring at animals dying in a desert.

I read the first page again and flipped it, reading the remaining three pages of questions.

No, this can’t be right!

I got back to the front page and repeated the process two more times.

“Is this really it!?” I almost shouted.

It couldn’t be, there had to be a trap somewhere. But where? I was filtering the words with a fine comb, and I wasn’t seeing any. In the meantime, Abby had moved on and was starting to answer the second page.

“Is anything wrong, miss Evergreen?”

“N-no sir! I’m just finding it…”

“…Yes?” he asked, showing a nasty smile.

“…Never mind,” I said, deciding it’d be a terrible idea to give him my thoughts.

I grabbed my pen and got to it.

Once I was done, I packed my stuff up, handed over my test and answer sheet, and left. Abby had done it before anybody else and was waiting for me outside.

“So? How was it?” she asked with an impish smile and look all over her face.

“Erm, was math always this easy?” I asked, feeling a bit dazed.

She laughed pleasantly and acted all fluffy while doing it, leaning forward with her hands behind her back.

“I made sure the exercises you practiced with me were twice as hard as anything he could throw at us today.”

“Oh, Abby!” I clamoured, pulling her into a tight hug. A bit too tight, because she was gasping for air once I let her go.

“Gee, with a reaction like that, next time I’ll make it ten times harder.”

“Pfft, fufu. Please do.”

Next class was P.E, and I was still daydreaming about what I’d do as a thank you for all her help. I was settling with taking her for ice cream after school when my ear picked up a stray conversation.

“Yeah, she’s a midget, but damn, she’s a cutie.”

That could only be Abby, I thought.

I glanced at the person who said that. It was one of the boys from my class. He was sitting with three others, all huddled up and talking in hushed tones. All but him, I mean. I didn’t know him that well—just as any other classmate to tell you the truth—but I knew him as a loudmouth.

Seeing them looking at my friend and girl I liked in that way soured my mood, and when he commented how she jiggled when jumping, I couldn’t help but call them pigs. Even if she wasn’t my girlfriend, it was still morally reprehensible to have such talk so openly. And I’d be dishonest if I didn’t admit that it was also because, to my eyes, I should be the only one allowed to see that.

They all looked at me, surprised, startled, but most of all, embarrassed for having been caught.

They moved away, sitting quietly while pretending nothing happened.

“Good job,” someone told me, tapping my shoulder. “I was about to say something, but you beat me to it.”

“Erm, thank you.”

That girl, what was her name? Out of all our classmates, she was probably the one we—and by that I mean Abby with me standing nearby—talked with the most. Brown, long wavy hair, small, friendly face… what was the name attached to that face?

I mulled it over as I watched the volleyball game Abby was participating in. She was small, but she sure could jump. And to my shame, my eyes were also drawn to her chest once she landed.

…She’s too darn cute…

Since it was summer, we had to P.E in t-shirt and shorts. I was too self-conscious to wear shorts as the ones they chose for our uniform were too short for my comfort, and I was wearing the jacket to protect my skin from the sun since where I was sitting had no shade, but our teacher simply didn’t care about the breach of school rules as long as a girl didn’t appear wearing bright pink, or something of the sort. Abby being Abby, she of course was in shorts and t-shirt, showing off her overwhelming charm.

“So? How did I do?” she asked, all smiles once her team won the game.

I told her she did well despite not having paid much attention to her game but to her and took my jacket off, covering her shoulders with it.

“Violet, I’m sweating and hot,” she protested.

“The wind is a bit cold, and I don’t want you to catch a cold,” I told her as an attempt at persuasion. I might also have brushed the collar a few times under her nose to tempt her with my scent. Her twitchy nose and fluffy attitude as she replaced my hold with her hands seemed to indicate she’d leave it on.

My game wasn’t all that bad. I was clumsy at sports, but today I was feeling like I was doing better than normal. I was passing semi-successfully, and I almost scored twice without the ball hitting the net. We lost, but I couldn’t care less. Abby seemed pretty pleased, too.

“Nice going there,” she said with a suspicious grin. She was still holding the jacket by the collar, around her shoulders.

“…What?” I asked, too suspicious to play it cool.

She hopped closer, our hips now touching.

“Mathilda told me about what happened. That was why you gave me your jacket, wasn’t it?”

I had been found out, all thanks to that girl named Mathilda.

Abby giggled at my embarrassment, leaning on me, intending to keep on with the teasing.

“Did they make you feel jelly?”

I thought about denying it, but she had me spot on,

“…Yeah, they did.”

“Hehe, that’s no good, although in this case, I guess it’s fine. Thanks for looking out for me.”

She was poking my face with an index, looking absolutely impish. However, today I was feeling quite bold and decided to not just stay passive.

I pushed my fingers under the curled ones from her playful hand, forcing them to straighten up and allowing me to entangle our hands. It was a bit quick, but I kissed the back of her hand before taking it down, the saltiness of her sweat mixing with the sweetness of her skin feeling strangely nice.

“Violet, people are watching,” she hushed, turning bright red. Now we matched colour wise.

Most everyone that had been around had sat further away when they came back, or were on the field, so we had as much privacy as being in the open allowed. Still, to answer her worry and afford myself a bit of peace of mind, I flipped the bottom of the jacket over our hands, so they were now covered.

“Wanna go for ice cream after classes?” I asked, feeling my mouth awfully dry. “It’s my treat.”

She gave me a shy nod before resting her head on my shoulder. It’s a date, she mumbled sweetly. Whether she meant it as a date date, or a hanging out, I didn’t know. I was hoping the first, as that would mean she’d have gotten the hint, but it’s us we are talking about, so she could be seeing me inviting her and being all flustered, and acting that affectionately simply because I was in an exceptionally good mood after the math exam.

I wished I was braver and asked her—or told her—about our date, but I was completely spent at that point. I still had a lot of work ahead of me before I could start fully acting on my feelings for her.

◊◊◊

When I was finally feeling like I was doing some progress, I went ahead and told her I’d like for us to sleep apart for the night.

Classes ended, she took my hand, walked me to the store where we had our ice cream, walked around the park afterwards, still holding hands, and when we got to her place, I used her working the night and us having slept together for five nights in a row as an excuse to go home alone and sleep on my lonesome.

I felt stupid and a coward then, but after a cold shower and some time to properly think, I concluded that I had done the right thing.

I was letting my emotions having the best of me. She was acting so sweet because she was happy with her performance during the tests. Also, she invited me because she wanted to treat me to sweets as thanks for my help. And she did it so awkwardly because that was only the second or third time she had ever made the invitation. Us touching… places, was us not being respectful of boundaries and curious about the body of the other. Violet because I had more curves than her. and me for obvious reasons. It had nothing to do with her falling for me, no matter how hopeful her touch made me feel.

Like I said, I was just getting carried away by my feelings and wishful thinking.

“That one is new,” my father commented after he sat down by my side on the couch, loosening his tie. “I thought you didn’t like those things anymore.”

I handed him Mr. Sealy, the stuffed seal she had given me on Valentine’s for him to see.

“I was forced to throw away all of my toys when I got into high school,” I told him. “Violet gave me that little fellow.”

His eyes flashed at me before he shifted his focus back at the toy he was flipping.

“I’m sorry sweety, I didn’t even think about it before opening my mouth.”

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“It’s ok,” I assured him, putting my legs over his lap. “She made it look like it was my choice.”

He gave me my plushie back, and I hugged it, bumping my nose on its.

“What’s the matter, sweety?” he asked, placing his huge hands over my shins.

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“…Dad, I erm…”

“…Is it about Violet? I might be your dad, but I can lend you an ear.”

“It’s ok, I’m sure there are a lot of things more important than my stupid problems.”

“They aren’t stupid, and they are important. They are the problems of my baby girl.”

I looked at his worried, sorry face. I had been so indoctrinated that my problems weren’t even problems that what should be natural felt off.

“…Violet asked me out today.”

“…Isn’t that great?” he asked, puzzled by how down I sounded.

I shook my head.

“She didn’t invite me in that way. She was just being nice.”

“…Hmm.”

He didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted him to say anything.

“Aren’t you perhaps being too negative?” he asked, tapping my knee.

“No, I’m just being realistic.”

“Like you were when you told me that your problems don’t matter?”

I looked at him, stunned by his question.

“Sweety, don’t take this the wrong way, but… I think you’re too negative towards yourself and things pertaining you.”

“…Yeah… she told me the same before.”

“…I really think you two have something special going on. How about having a little bit of faith in yourself?”

“But I’m so… childish and needy. And I’m such a mess. I can’t seem to do anything right… and when I do, I mess up something big time right away,” I told him, wheeping.

“Ah, I see. You think you’re not good enough for her.”

Yes, it was exactly it. It all boiled down to those six words. “I’m not good enough for her”.

She could be a huge stress ball, not all that assertive—although she had been acting more and more aggressively, at least towards me—fussed over things for so long that she needed someone to give her a push, and her self-esteem, although also on the rise, also could be called lacking at times. But she was reliable, competent, caring, loving, patient. She was an angel—no, a goddess. Me? I felt like I was troublesome on a good day and a lost cause on an average one. What hopes could I have of us becoming anything more? If anything, with things going on, shouldn’t I worry about us growing distant as she saw me not blossoming like she had been during these months we’ve been together?

It all felt hopeless.

“Come here,” my father said, both demanding and caring.

I felt small in Violet’s arms, but in his hold I felt like Mr. Sealy would feel if it had the ability to when I hugged it. “Don’t worry, that girl is crazy about you.”

“Just not in that way,” I cried out as I clung to him.

“Shh, shh, shh. Have some faith. I’m sure things are better than what you believe.”

Next morning when I woke up, I felt completely hollow.

I didn’t have nightmares. I also couldn’t say I had any dreams. Overall, it wasn’t that bad of a feeling waking up after sleeping alone the whole night. Had I really gotten better?

Don’t be stupid, it was just one night.

I sat up and grabbed the notebook Violet had given me as my sleep diary. I flipped its pages, trying to see some sort of pattern, but nothing was popping up. Not today, at least.

There were too many nights of us sleeping together for me to have any sort of reliable data to make assumptions.

“Nothing of note,” I wrote under the date for today.

I got up and went through the preparations for my morning run.

It had rained during the night, so there were plenty of puddles around, the sun not having had the opportunity to evaporate them yet, and the scent of wet grass in the fresh air made it feel like my head was getting clearer as I went along.

On my way back home, I was deciding between going home for a shower before picking her up, or go to her place instead, since I had at least a school uniform there I could use, and her door was a stone throw away from where I was standing.

Humph, no matter how close we might feel, we are way too close.

I get it, I had issues that made it hard for me to be alone without having a breakdown. However, having almost half of my stuff at her place was beyond unreasonable. It was one of those cases where she had fussed about it too much, and I was too happy with the idea of us getting closer for me to refuse. Pathetic, isn’t it? Since I couldn’t get her, I monopolised her instead. And she was too kind to even notice, or let herself be bothered by that.

“I’m such a mess,” I grumbled.

“What are you on about?”

I gasped and jumped to the side, landing on a puddle.

“Papa Stan!? You scared me!”

He looked at me in the same way my dad did last night before continuing our conversation.

“Did you have another nightmare?” he asked.

“No, I erm, I have some stuff on my mind.”

“Huh… anything I can help you with?”

“…Have you noticed anything strange about her lately?”

His face lit up like a Christmas tree, as was usual whenever he talked about his beloved daughter.

“Yesterday she came home really happy. She was even humming while making dinner and doing the dishes. It wasn’t even her turn for those chores.”

“Yeah, she did well during yesterday’s exams.”

“She had exams yesterday?”

“Didn’t she tell you?”

He shook his head, confused. “Only that she took you for ice cream after school and that you took a walk at the park,” he explained. She looked completely over the moon too he added under my thoughtful expression.

She was that happy about it that she’d start humming? No, that couldn’t be it. I had never seen her do that, ever.

“Was it a date?” he asked me.

“No, I erm…”

I was finding it hard to deny it this time. Could it have been a date after all?

“Wanna head inside and wake her up? God knows she needs you around in the morning.”

“Pfft, hehe, yeah.” I agreed, following him back to his place. “I swear, one of these days I’m going to see her half asleep taking the toaster into the shower to prepare breakfast while bathing.”

“I’d laugh, but with the way she is, I fear that’s a real possibility. Sorry, it must be hard to deal with that every day.”

“No, erm… I enjoy it.”

He chuckled heartly and shook my shoulder.

“You’re so head over heels for her.”

“S-Stan!” I moaned, feeling all the blood going to my face.

“…Keep at it. I think you might be close.”

My head snapped towards him. I was incredulous, but he smiled at me confidently.

“Did my dad tell you to say that to me?”

“He did call me yesterday, but what I’m saying is my honest opinion. Here, go on in.”

He ushered me inside his house before giving me a thumbs up and closing the door. How the two of them could be related was a mystery. Maybe she took after her mother not only on her looks, but in personality too?

I’d ask about it some other time. Now, I had to face some of my fears and desires. But first…

“I should take a shower,” I thought out loud while taking my wet running shoes off.

Sneaking in her room was always a challenge due to her light sleep. I was opening the drawer where the underwear was when I heard her sleepy, dragged voice.

“Abby, come back to bed,” she said.

The curtains were shut, but there was enough light for me to realise she had an arm out and extend towards me. I thought about resisting, tell her I needed a shower first, but… her touch. I felt a craving for it.

She placed an arm under my head, coming around and the hand resting on my shoulder where it stayed caressing it. The other hand, she placed on the side of my body, moving up and down my ribs and hip. Our legs, she intertwined as she pulled me closer and closer, there not being a single gap between our bodies. Even our faces were squeezed together, her lips touching the tip of my nose.

This was hurting me, just not physically.

“What time is it?” she asked me.

“We only have a few more minutes before having to get up.”

“…Hmm…”

“…Violet? Erm, about yesterday… I… I had a great time.”

What I wanted to say, rather, ask, I couldn’t. However, that which I had told her now, I had forgotten to tell her on the previous day.

“Fufu… that makes me really happy…”

My heart was beating so fast, I felt like I was going to die.

I realised then that I simply couldn’t do it for much longer. I had to either choose between being her friend or telling her how I felt. Either way, I’d be dead on the inside for who knew how long.

“This weekend… will you go out with me…?” she asked, her voice sounding like she was going back to sleep.

“…As a date?” I asked, feeling so much hope that I was sure was going to be crushed that there was a ringing in my ears.

“Hmm… I’d love it if it was…”

I’d say I was turned to stone on that very moment were it not for the tears burning on my face.

“You… You wanna go on a date with me? Like a couple?” I asked, trying to sound as calm as possible so not to alert her motherly side and fully awake her.

“…Mh-hmm…”

I was barely holding it together. I was so happy, I could kiss her right there and then.

“Hmm? Erm, what was the question?” she said, sounding more awake, her brain finally catching on.

“Sorry, I really need to use the toilet,” I told her, ejecting myself from that nest of intoxicating happiness I was in.

Good things did happen to me. Violet did find a way to fall in love with me too. It all had happened. It all had happened, and I probably deserved it.

“Abby!? Were you crying?” she asked while grabbing hold of my face, alarmed at seeing my puffy red eyes when I returned to the bedroom.

“Nah, I was careless and got shampoo into my eyes.”

“Was that really it? Your voice sounds strange.”

“Pfft, hehe, yes, that’s really it, miss fussy.”

I grabbed her cold hands and began rubbing them on my cheeks, giving each one a kiss on the palms. “See? I’m fine.”

“I-I see…”

We got a bit lost looking into each other’s eyes. It filled my chest with fuzziness seeing a shy smile form in her face as time went by.

She likes me. She really likes me.

“So, about this weekend,” I started, putting my arms around her neck.

“…What about it?” she asked with the voice of someone who feared was forgetting something. She was.

Initially that got me mad, but after a second of thinking, I concluded it was for the best. I already had what I needed: confirmation on how she felt about me.

Now I could fully focus on getting better so that when we started dating, I wouldn’t be such a burden. Plus… the way we were now was so much fun that, maybe carrying on like this for a bit longer was fine. We’d have the whole summer for growing closer through very sweet but awkward moments that would turn into great memories. Happy memories.

“Abby, please, I’m really sorry if… wait… are you pulling a prank on me?”

I shrugged.

“Nope. You really forgot, but that’s totally fine,” I told her, sweet as honey.

“It… It is?”

“Yup. As long as you give me plenty of cuddles today.”

“…I can do that.”

“Hehe, that tickles,” I chimed as she rubbed behind one of my ears. What tickled me more was the delighted smile she had as she saw me melting to her touch.

“Haah-ah, I really don’t wanna go to school today,” I whined, turning around and pressing my back against her. “All I wanna do is stay here with you and do nothing more than be pampered and pamper in return.”

“…”

I had said it as a tease, but when I looked up, she was staring at me dead serious.

“Ok. We don’t have any exams today, so I guess it’s fine.”

“No, I was just joking.”

“And I’m serious. It’s fine with me if we stay at home for today. It’s not like we’re losing much from skipping class during the last week of school. Besides, erm… you look like you’re needing it.”

“I do?”

“Yeah.”

“…What makes you say that?”

“Erm… your eyes.”

“My eyes? What about them?”

“They, erm… they seem more pleading than usual.”

I turned back around and hid my face on her armpit while she held me and patted my head.

“It’s not fair.”

“Erm, what?”

“…You saw right through me.”

“…Fufu, because I know you, don’t I?”

“Hehe, yeah… better than I know myself, even.”