Changing Leaves

by Edie Bryant

  She laughed. “Is that all?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is what all?”

  “Is that all you feel? That’s nothing, that’s just having a best friend. I feel the exact same way about you.”

  “You… you do?” I asked, trying not to blush.

  “Absolutely! And I’m not in love with you.”

  Then my heart sank.

  “Well, I’m in love with you,” I continued.

  She rolled her eyes. “Gina, come on…”

  “I’m not fucking kidding, Jess. I may just be a best friend to you, but for me, this is love. Real fucking love.”

  “I don’t think—”

  I cut her off. “I get it. I get that this is not what you feel and it’s weird. But I am in love with you, even if you don’t love me. What about the fact that, sometimes, I wake up before you and I watch you sleep? How about the fact that I look into your eyes and I get tingles all over my body? Or fantasize about what your lips may taste like? Do you feel any of that, best friend?”

  I expected her to deflate. To tell me no, that wasn’t how she felt as a best friend, and then apologize for telling me it wasn’t love. I was angry at her for not getting it and trying to tell me how I felt.

  She didn’t deflate, though. Her jaw dropped and she mumbled, “Yes.”

  At first, I didn’t register what she said. “Exactly, so maybe don’t tell me—wait, what did you say, yes?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “You… You understand what I asked, right? I asked you—”

  “I watch you when you sleep too,” she answered. “You look so peaceful in the middle of the night and I feel actual warmth in my stomach. I think to myself ‘I should just wrap my arm around her. She looks cold, I should bring her close.’ But I never do… And once you wake, I pretend the thought never crossed my mind.”

  Now it was my turn to have my jaw drop.

  “Jess…” I said, reaching my hand out to her. To my surprise, she jerked away.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Gina,” she said. “But it’s not love. That’s not what this is. I’m sorry but… I am not in love with you. I’m just not.”

  How could she say that, I thought. How could she tell me how she really felt and then deny it?

  “Jess, you just said you want to cuddle me in my sleep sometimes.”

  “I know what I said,” she answered defiantly. “But it’s not love.”

  “Then what the hell is it?” I snapped. “If you don't love me, why do you do that? Why do you feel that way about me?”

  “I… It’s just because we’re close,” she explained. “It makes sense. It’s always made sense. You are the closest person I have in my life. And I get lonely, everyone does. When you get lonely, you turn to the people closest to you. I want you because you’re closest.”

  “No,” I said seriously. “No, that’s not how it works for people who are just friends. They may rely on each other, but they don’t fantasize about the other while they sleep. That’s something else entirely.”

  “Gina,” she whispered, “I’m not in love with you. I can’t be. They’re just confused feelings.”

  “I don’t think it’s your feelings that are confused.”

  Her eyes narrowed again. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means you’re in denial!”

  “I’m not,” she said, as if she was sure of herself. I knew she wasn’t.

  I inched closer to her. “Oh yeah?” I asked, challenging her.

  “Yeah.”

  “So if I get closer to you…” I said, moving my body, “you’re going to be able to be this close to me comfortably? You’re not going to want to touch me? You’re not going to want to kiss me?”

  She stared at me, silent, as my face inched closer to hers. But I knew the closer I got, the more her resolve started to fall to pieces.

  Actually, watching her now, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been obvious to me before. The tension between us had never been more clear. Maybe it was the alcohol, though. The alcohol that made me bold, the alcohol that made her weak.

  Yep, that was it. That was what this was, as I later learned. A moment of weakness sponsored by alcohol.

  But she did kiss me. It took a second, but she was the one who leaned in. Her lips met mine and sparks flew by me. I gripped the back of her neck and pulled her closer. No matter how deeply our lips became entangled, it never felt like she was close enough to me.

  We made out for a long time. Nothing more, nothing less. just two long time best friends wrapped up in the kiss of one another.

  Eventually, she pulled away. I had no idea how much time passed.

  “We have to stop, before things go any farther,” she said quietly. “My parents are home, they can’t find us like this…”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “Okay then.” Though the last thing I wanted to do was stop.

  She smiled at me and pushed my then shaggy hair out of my eyes. “You’re really beautiful, you know.”

  I smiled back. “Yeah… Yeah, so are you.”

  She kissed my forehead and butterflies rose up in me. I knew we’d just been making out and you’d have thought a simple forehead kiss wouldn’t have as much of an effect after that. But it did, because it was different than the way we had just been kissing.

  Us making out was a kiss of pure passion. Hot, sexy, concentrated passion. But the kiss on the forehead was a kiss of comfort. It was the kind of kiss someone gave you when they cared deeply about your well-being.

  And that was how I felt. Like this girl cared about me, had always cared about me, and I had been too foolhardy to notice. But not anymore.

  “You need to rest,” she told me suddenly. “We both do. It’s been a long day.”

  I didn’t want to rest, though. That was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to stay up all night with her, exploring this new relationship.

  But at the same time, I also wanted to cuddle up to her. I wanted to sleep with someone’s arms wrapped around me for the very first time. Not just someone’s arms, but Jess’s arms. I wanted to feel the safety of sleeping by her side.

  “Okay, let’s go to bed.” I nodded.

  She dropped her pants, and crawled into bed in her underwear, the way she always did. This time, though, it was really distracting to see her legs, and she walked to flick off the light.

  I rolled over, so that I was facing the wall, and felt her climb into bed behind me. She got so close to me that our bodies were touching from head to toe, then pulled her arm around me.

  She kissed my shoulder. “I really do care about you, you know,” she said softly.

  “I know,” I said. I had been hoping for an ‘I love you,’ but ‘I care about you’ would suffice.

  She drifted off to sleep not long after that. For a second, I was wondering how she could do that. After all the excitement of tonight, how could she have fallen asleep? I knew she wasn’t faking it either, as I could feel her rhythmic breathing on my shoulders.

  But then I realized, from my own drunkenness, that it was probably the alcohol that allowed her to crash despite everything that happened. And though I was a lot drunker than her, and pretty tired, honestly, I couldn’t find myself entering the same sleep.

  Which I didn’t mind. I liked being just like this. Having Jess’s arm around me, feeling her warm breath on my shoulder. I’d never felt safer in my life.

  I couldn’t explain this feeling. It was as if pure happiness was radiating through me. This was everything I always imagined it to be… It felt just as fucking good as I always thought it would.

  I couldn’t believe this was even happening. I never thought it would. I didn’t believe there was actually a chance that Jess could like me. I was just drunk and thought hey, what the hell, why not take the chance? If she was moving away anyway, if we’d probably lose our friendship anyway, why not go for it?

  I was so proud of myself. This was out of character for me. I didn’t usually do th
e brave thing… I went with the easy thing. But not this time. And it paid off! My life would completely change now.

  I didn’t know just how much it’d change.

  When I awoke the next day, I no longer felt the warm comfort of Jess’s arm around my shoulder. No, instead, my shoulder was cold.

  I rolled over, and at first I wasn’t worried. I was a little disappointed she wasn’t in bed anymore, as I really wanted to be cuddling her, but I didn’t have any suspicions.

  She had always been an early bird. She was constantly waking up before me. Usually, she’d just go out to the kitchen to make breakfast.

  I started to get out of bed to go look for her, but when I started to crawl out, I heard a crunch underneath my hand.

  I looked down to see a little white paper. It had Jess’s handwriting on it.

  “I’m so sorry for this. I had to go. You won’t understand it, I don’t even understand it, but I have to do what I have to do. Sneak out in the morning so my parents don’t know you were here. Take this note with you.”

  She had to go…?

  For a while after, I didn’t process that note. At first, I thought maybe she just meant she had to go for right now. Like, she had to have some time to think alone.

  I was confused, but I did what the note said. I stuffed it in my pocket and I walked back to my house, which wasn’t far away. Her parents would be none the wiser.

  And I expected that in the next few days, I’d get a phone call from her. Probably a phone call telling me that she couldn’t do this, that we had to just be friends. And it was going to break my heart.

  It fucking sucked, waiting to have my heart broken. But at the time, I thought the worst thing that could happen was that I’d get a call from her rejecting me. I’d have to force myself to be just her friend again and nothing more. Everything would change between us.

  But that wasn’t the worst case scenario at all. The worst case scenario was what actually happened…

  She never called at all.

  I waited a week for her to get a hold of me before reaching out. I wanted her to have all the time she needed. I figured rushing her would only push her farther away from me.

  But a week was all I could wait. Because each and every day without an answer from her was pure torture. Every day I replayed that night in my head and I longed for her so deeply.

  I tried calling her but her phone was disconnected. I thought that was weird, but it still didn’t raise red flags for me.

  But then I went to her house. I knocked on her door and her mother answered.

  “Oh, Gina, hello,” her mother said, with a sad looking smile.

  “Hi, sorry to bother you, but is Jess around?”

  Her forced smile sank into a frown.

  “Don’t you know… Didn’t she tell you?”

  “Tell me what?” I asked.

  “Oh…” She looked around. “I thought she would have told you, her best friend… She left.”

  “She… left?” I asked. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean she just… left.”

  “Left to where? Like, she moved?”

  “Yeah, she moved. And I have no idea where.”

  This seemed unrealistic. I knew she hated this small town, and I knew she desperately wanted to leave it but… to just leave out of nowhere? Without even telling her parents?

  At first I thought maybe her parents were covering for her. Maybe she told them she didn’t want to see me anymore and asked them to lie to me. But her mother’s sad face quickly had me convinced. Nobody was that good of an actor.

  For the rest of the summer, I continued to stop by her house just to check in. Just to make sure she hadn’t come back. She never did, though, and eventually I stopped checking.

  It broke me. For months, I felt sick. I could hardly eat. I couldn’t sleep. Life felt empty in a way it never had before. I thought I’d never heal from the loss of her.

  It would have been different if she had just told me she didn’t want to be with me. At least I could have gotten closure. I could have still felt like I was important to her somehow.

  Now I was doubting if I ever meant anything to her. I thought we were closer than anyone, but if that was true, how could she disappear without a trace? How could she do this to me? Didn’t she think about how it was going to feel? Nobody who really cared about me could hurt me like this and never care.

  Thankfully, I did move on, though. At least, I thought I did. I’d managed to get over the pain of it all. But now, knowing she was in town again was bringing back all these feelings that I believed were gone for good.

  I didn’t know how I was going to react to her being here. At the moment, I didn’t feel particularly angry. I probably should have, since she really hurt me, but those feelings just weren’t coming to the forefront for me.

  More than anything I just… I wanted to see her. Regardless of the pain it’d undoubtedly bring. And even more than seeing her, I wanted to touch her again. I wanted to feel that closeness.

  I hadn’t managed to get that feeling again since her. I’d dated other women, of course I had, and I even really liked a few of them.

  But there was only one woman who was ever to send shivers down my spine. Only one woman who managed to make me feel completely safe and comfortable by the simple touch of her hand. And I was going to see her tomorrow.

  Holy shit, I was going to see her tomorrow.

  4

  Jess

  I wanted to eat a quick lunch before I picked up Lyla, but I wasn’t able to. There were some things I had to get done around the house for my mom and time wouldn’t allow it.

  I didn’t mind much. I probably couldn’t eat, anyway. I was too excited to finally have Lyla back. My mother was relieved when I told her she’d been found.

  I knew that obviously she was my cat now and I took all the responsibility for her, but I could see she still brought my mother a lot of comfort. She was a total cuddler, and she’d lay with me or my mom for hours. Which was nice on days where she had trouble getting out of bed.

  I texted the person who found her that I’d be coming over soon and she gave me the okay, so around noon I got in my car and drove over to the address.

  It was in a nice part of town. A little subdivision of small houses, none that were more than two bedrooms, but they were cute and it looked safe.

  I parked out front and started making my way to the door. When I looked in the window, though, something I saw made my heart sink.

  There was a small tortoiseshell kitten staring at me. But it wasn’t my tortoiseshell kitten. This one was obviously a few months older, though the markings were very similar.

  I thought for a second that maybe the person who called me got mixed up. They had grabbed a different cat than mine and confused the two.

  But that wouldn’t make sense. It wasn’t as if I put up flyers or anything. The only way that this stranger would be able to call me was if they picked up Lyla themselves and called the number on her collar. They had to have her.

  So this must just be another cat. Weird that the same person who picked up my cat would have a tortoiseshell of their own. I didn’t really see them too often. At least, not as often as other colorations.

  I rang the doorbell and waited patiently. It took a while before the stranger came to the door, though.

  No, not a stranger, not a stranger at all. When the door opened up, I recognized the face immediately.

  “… Gina?” I whispered.

  “Yeah…” she said quietly. “Hi.”

  She did not look nearly as shocked to see me as I was to see her. I was slack jawed, staring at her like I’d seen a ghost.

  “You’re… wait… You found Lyla?” I questioned.

  “Yeah…” she said softly. “I did. She was in the parking lot of my work.”

  “I… Oh.”

  I was completely caught off guard. I had no idea what to say. She was the one person I was hoping I wouldn't run into and n
ow I’d literally driven over to her house. Fuck.

  “Do you want me to just bring her out to you?” she asked anxiously. “I mean, you can come in if you want.”

  I didn’t know what I wanted. On one hand, I would have loved to sprint away from a situation this awkward but now that I was looking at her again… The last thing I wanted to do was walk away.

  She was just as beautiful as she’d always been in my memory.

  “I’ll come in… If that’s fine with you.”

  She nodded awkwardly as I stepped inside.

  It was a cute house. Not too big, but very well decorated.

  “Have a seat, I’ll grab your cat,” she said. “She’s in the back room because my cat doesn’t really react very well to her.”

  “Right, okay.” I nodded as I sat down.

  I couldn’t believe this had seriously happened. What were the chances? A little part of me wanted to think that this moment was fate because…. Well, come on! It felt like there must be a reason for this.

  She came back out with Lyla in a small cat carrier.

  “You can keep the carrier if you want,” she told me. “To bring her home and everything.”

  “Perfect… thanks,” I muttered as if I was talking to a stranger.

  And it was weird. I kind of was talking to a stranger. I hadn’t seen Gina in years but… But I was also talking to the person who had known me best in the entire world.

  “You, uh, don’t seem very shocked to see me?” I questioned.

  “No, not really,” she admitted. “The name on the collar and your voice on the phone… I kind of figured it out.”

  “Right, yeah, that makes sense…” I mumbled. “Why didn’t you say anything on the phone?”

  She shrugged, sitting down on a recliner across from me. I wished she wouldn’t. I wished she’d sit next to me.

  “Well, when I saw the name on the collar I thought of you but didn’t think it was actually you. So when I heard your voice on the phone I kind of freaked out. I was shocked. I had no idea what to say. I was caught completely off guard.”