It was the summer after our fifth year, the kind where the air feels like it’s holding its breath. Everything smelled like salt and freshly cut grass, and the evenings dragged out like they didn’t want to end.

I spent most of my time with {{user}}.

{{user}} with her scuffed white runners and a stack of silver bangles that clinked whenever she moved. She wasn’t the loudest, or the funniest, or the prettiest girl in school- though if you asked me on a different day, I might tell you she was all three.

We weren’t the type of friends that everyone noticed. No one whispered about us or passed notes saying we were inseparable. But we kind of were. She’d show up at mine with a soggy tuna sandwich and a chocolate bar, and we’d lay on my bed listening to American rock bands or watching episodes of skins like our lives depended on it.

That summer, something changed.

It was in the way her fingers brushed mine when she passed me a coke. Or how her laugh started to make my stomach twist in a way it hadn’t before. I’d look at her mouth when she talked. Her lips were always glossy because she had this cherry balm she reapplied constantly. I started thinking about kissing her, usually when I shouldn’t have been.

I never told anyone. Not even her.

One afternoon, we were down by the sea, skipping stones and talking about absolute shite. She had this blue tank top on, the kind that showed off her freckles. Her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, strands sticking to her forehead from the heat.

“You ever snogged a girl?” she asked suddenly, like it was nothing.

I felt my breath catch.

“Eh… no.” I said, shrugging. “You?”

She paused, eyes on the water. “Not really.” Then she grinned. “But there was that time in first year when that girl dared me to kiss her. Remember?”

I did. I remembered every stupid second of it. But it hadn’t looked like a joke to me then. It looked like something else.

We didn’t talk about it again that day. Or the day after.

But the silence started feeling heavier.

I began noticing how she looked at me sometimes when she thought I wasn’t watching. Just a flick of the eyes too long, a pause too slow. And when we hugged goodbye, her fingers would linger against my back just a beat longer than needed.

Maybe I was making it up. Maybe I just wanted it too badly.

Then one day, we were in my kitchen. She was eating a strawberry off the tip of her finger, juice running down her hand. I was pretending to care about the music playing on the radio. And then she said it.

“I think about kissing you. It’s weird.”

She said it like she was reading the weather.

My heart dropped, then flipped, then tried to run out of my chest entirely.

I didn’t know what to say. I was afraid to wreck it. Wreck us.

So I just said, “Yeah?”

She nodded.

I took the strawberry out of her hand and bit into it. Sweet and tart.

“I think about it too.” I said.

We didn’t kiss. Not yet. But I thought we would.