A Friend Like Me

But for now I'll look so longingly
Waiting…
For you to want me, for you to need me, for you to notice me.
For You To Notice - Dashboard Confessional

“So,” Joe said casually, “who're you going with to the ball?”

We, that is, the whole Jonas family, Vanessa, and I, were on our way to my parents' house for this…I don't even know what. Friend reunion type thing.

“Joseph,” Denise said, “stop bugging Ava.”

“I am not,” Joe denied.

“Yes you are,” I said.

“You are,” Kevin supplied. “Wait…who are you going with?”

I stared at him in response.

“Okay!” Kevin said. “Just stop staring at me, man!”

{∞∞∞}

As soon as the shuttle dropped us off at my house and we got in, Vanessa pulled me into the empty kitchen.

“Do you like Joe?” she asked me immediately.

However, this is why I'm not friends with many girls. It's the whole, “You and Joe are so perfect! You guys are secretly dating, aren't you?” thing. Like, a girl can play so many games of truth or dare, MASH, and the likes of that, you know? Don't get me wrong, though. Vanessa seems nice.

“No,” I immediately denied. “Of course not! That's…that is such a silly idea. Why would I like him? That is so disgusting, I'm barfing internally. Also, that's so blunt. You know what happens to blunt people? People kill them because they get insulted. The blunt people get killed, that is. Also, you know what else I think? I think that you like Joe and you're using the defense mechanism displacement to displace your feelings for Joe onto me and say that I like him. I don't, by the way.”

“What?” Vanessa asked. “You like him. I don't. Sounds to me like you're the one who's displacing feelings here.”

“Okay, fine. I like him,” I admitted. “Actually, no, I'm completely crazy over him.”

Vanessa smiled. “Ha! I knew – ”

“Wait, who?” Joe asked, coming into the kitchen.

I nearly had a heart attack then and there. I mean, my heart literally felt like it jumped a mile into the air.

“What? I…uh…how much of that did you hear?” I stammered.

Crap crap crap. If he heard his name in there…

My heart started beating more rapidly.

“Just the part where you were all, 'I like him and I'm completely crazy over him,'” Joe said my part in a falsetto.

“Oh,” I said. “Oh yeah. That explains the 'who' of your…um…'Wait, who?' sentence, then.”

I'm so stupid.

“So, who is it? Is it the same guy you're going to the dance with?” Joe wanted to know.

“Er…” I looked helplessly at Vanessa for support.

“Don't you know better than to eavesdrop, Joe?” Vanessa scolded. “Anyway, we'd better go join the others.”

“Thank you,” I mouthed to Vanessa.

{∞∞∞}

“So,” said Joe, sitting down beside me at the couch after dinner, “who're you going to that dance with?”

This boy just won't stop. Ever since I've told him this morning at Blue Bean that I was going with someone to the ball, he keeps asking this, hoping to catch me off guard and spill that James is going to be my partner.

“I can't tell you,” I said. “You'll just make fun of me.”

“No,” Joe said, “I really won't. Come on, you know me. Now, who's your partner?”

“No,” I shot back, “I do know you. I know you'll just make fun of me. Well, either that or you won't believe me.”

“Tell me,” Joe pestered. “I really won't laugh and I'll believe you. I promise.”

“You'll find out on Friday.”

“It's Saturday right now, though. I can't wait that long.”

“Too bad.”

“Well, can you at least tell me who you like?”

“Uh…no one.”

“Oh come on. I know when you're lying, you know. Your eyebrow sort of twitches.”

“What?! No it doesn't!”

“Yeah, it does. See, tell me a lie.”

Feeling extremely foolish, I put a finger to my eyebrow. “Um…I don't have a partner to the ball.”

And it twitched!!!

Joe's lips turned up into a smug smile. “See? Now, who do you like?”

I didn't answer.

“Who makes your heart go dun-dun when he's around you?”

Oh gosh. You, I wanted to answer, but no. That would be called making the situation awkward.

“Dun-dun?” I said instead.

“You know what I mean,” Joe said, shrugging. “Who, when they touch you” – he touched my hand gently and rested his hand on top of mine – “makes your heart go faster and gives you this…feeling?”

Truth be told, I'm surprised my heart hasn't burst out or anything yet. Oh God. This has to stop. Now, before I say or do anything I'm probably going to regret later on.

I stood up. “W-We…we should join our families now. They're probably looking for us.”

“Hey, wait,” Joe said, standing up, too. “Av, you know you can tell me anything, right? After all, we are – ”

“ – best friends,” I finished. “Trust me, I know.”

Which is exactly why I can't tell him.

As soon as I got to where everyone was, I was ambushed by Vanessa (again), who dragged me back into the empty kitchen (again).

“What happened?” she wanted to know, looking quite beside herself. “Did you guys finally discover the extreme passion between you two?”

“What?” I said.

“I mean, look at the look on your face. You look really breathless right now.”

I do? And all that happened was that Joe put his arm around me and put his hand on mine. Well, and he was really close to me.

Ugh, I'm pathetic.

Not that it didn't feel good. It felt great, actually.

“Well,” I said, “he did this hand thing and he was sitting really close. That's it. I wouldn't look into it, though.”

“Why not? This is really romantic!” said Vanessa.

“No, it's not. It's incestuous. Besides, he realized just this morning that I'm a girl.”

“What?!” Vanessa looked surprised. “Oh well, though. I think he's probably just covering up for his insane love for you.”

“No. That's impossible.”

“How do you know? Just go tell him that you love him.”

I considered this. “What if he doesn't feel that way, though? Then I'll just make friendship into awkwardness and I'll lose him.”

“I'm pretty sure he likes you. If he doesn't, then just tell him you want to continue being friends.”

“I…really?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, fine. I'll tell him.”

Someday, though. Probably in the extremely distant future, but I don't need to tell Vanessa this.

Vanessa did a little jump in excitement. “Yes! Let's go, then!” She grabbed my wrist and dragged me out of the kitchen.

“Wait, what? Where?”

“To Joe, so you can tell him.”

“Huh?! Now?!”

“Yeah. When else? You'll just lose courage later.” As we were passing by Mrs. Jonas and my mom, she said, “Do you know where Joe is?”

“I think he went up to Ava's room,” replied Mrs. Jonas.

Great. See, now he uses my room without permission. This is how far we are from being…I don't even know what.

“Okay,” Vanessa said and dragged me up the stairs.

Digging my heels into the carpet, I tried to hold on to the railing of the stairs. “Wait! No! We're diving headfirst into an imbroglio right now!”

Vanessa stopped for a second and looked at me, confused. “A what?”

“A confused and extremely complicated situation,” I explained.

Vanessa blinked. “Oh.” Then she added, “We're not. What's happening right now is that I'm pushing you off of Coward Cliff.” With that, she tightened her vice-like grip on my wrist and dragged me up the last steps of stairs.

“I don't even know what to say!” I hissed as we moved nearer and nearer toward the danger zone called my room. “I mean, I have to prepare a speech! Everyone prepares speeches when they confess their love to someone!”

“Here's what you say: I love you. Now, go inside the door!” She pushed me a little towards the door to my room.

Curse myself for giving her a tour of the house earlier.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked again.

“Completely. Listen. The possible worst case scenario is that he doesn't feel the same way and it becomes awkward for a moment, but you guys get over it. Best case scenario is that you two start dating and you'll never regret this moment.”

I immediately smiled at the thought of the latter. “Okay, fine.”

“I'll be downstairs.” Vanessa left me and I walked towards my door.

Okay. Don't panic. I can do this. I'll just tell him I want to take our relationship to a more-than-platonic level. Then, if he agrees…who knows what could happen next? I smiled giddily as I thought of how we'd start to go on dates and kiss…go ahead and say it. I'm hopeless.

Then, I heard the voices inside my room.

“…And now I can't stop thinking about her and it's so weird!” I heard Joe say. “It's like my eyes have been transformed or she's transformed or I've been blind this whole time. Like…I didn't see how beautiful she is.”

…Who's he talking about? Oh well. Nothing good comes out of eavesdropping.

I took a deep breath and barged into the room in the middle of Kevin and Joe's conversation.

“Kevin, you really have to help me before I do – before I do something stupid and ruin our relationship,” Joe said, not noticing me. “Ugh, this is all her fault!” He ran his hand through his hair.

“Uh, Joe?” I said softly. “I need to tell you something.”

Joe jumped a little and quickly spun around. “Ava!” he said loudly. “Uh…how – how much of that did you hear?” Blushing, Joe rubbed the back of his neck.

See? I saw this imbroglio coming from a mile away. Well, actually, I saw it coming from the stairs.

Remembering why I came here, I blushed too. “Well, I just heard that you like this girl and…yeah. I…uh…so, who is it? The girl, that is.”

Kevin, meanwhile, was doing nothing to help us out of this quagmire. He was just looking at us and smiling. “You mean the girl Joe got a crush on?” Kevin finally said. “It's – ow!” he cried, for Joe had kicked him hard in the shins.

“It's – ” Kevin tried again, but Joe elbowed him this time.

“Leave,” Joe said, pointing to the door. “Now.”

Kevin walked towards the doorway. “Dude, don't get mad at me just because both of you two like each other!”

At this, I was sure my face was as red as the monochromatic painting I'd done in high school. Which, you know, the color I chose was red. I looked at Joe and noticed that he was blushing too and was looking at the ground.

“Uh. Ew,” I said. “No.”

Talk about delayed reaction.

“Oh come on, Kevin,” Joe said. “That's – that's not even a little bit true. I mean, it could be partially true if I, uh, if I saw her as a – a female, but I don't. I mean, Kevin, that would be a little bit true if she – if she was actually hot.”

Wait…what? Ugh. I can't do this. I really can't do this.

“So…what did you want to tell me?” asked Joe after Kevin left.

It didn't help that he looked really nice today. I mean, he always looks nice. It's just that…I don't know. His hair curled nicely and like…looked messy, but not too messy if you know what I mean. I also noticed how his jeans were…well, this is really embarrassing to admit, but they were, like, hugging him in just the right places.

Oh God. Now I'm starting to sound like those sorority girls.

A breeze flew in through my open window and lifted up a shirt sleeve, exposing his toned biceps underneath.

Just like that, it was harder to breathe.

Why, oh why do I have to be like this around Joe now?

“Why are you staring at my arm?” Joe asked.

Busted.

Blushing again, I looked down at my feet and sat down on my bed. “There was an interesting shape there,” I lied, hoping he wouldn't notice my lie.

Otherwise, if he did notice, I'd have to tell him I was thinking about how hot he was.

Which would make this already awkward situation ten times more awkward.

Oh wait…I just said that there was an interesting shape on his arm. The only…er…shape on his arm are his muscles. Which, in translation, pretty much means that I just told him, “Nice muscles.”

“So, what did you want to tell me?” Joe tried again.

I shook my head. “Nothing. It's not important.”

Joe sat down next to me. “Sure it is. Anything you have to say is important.”

I smiled. “Really?”

“Well, yeah.”

…I still can't tell him I love him, though. I know, I know. I'm a coward. But so what? It's better to keep our friendship safe than let it all crash to the ground because of an eight lettered, three worded sentence. Sure, it's a simple sentence that most people would want nothing more than to hear it come out of their romantic interests' mouths. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'd love for Joe to tell me he loved me – and in a more-than-platonic way at that.

“…Thanks,” I said softly.

“And,” Joe added, “I really hate when we keep things from each other.”

Great. Just great. See? If I keep this to myself, I'm keeping things from him, which I don't usually do. This time, he really knows I'm keeping secrets from him and I'll damage the friendship. But if I do tell him, I'll just damage the friendship. It's a lose-lose situation. Trust me, you never want one of these. Ever.

“We never kept anything from each other,” Joe continued. “It hurts that you're not trusting me right now.”

…Okay, now I just feel really guilty.

Eff this. I'm going to tell him. I'm going to tell it to him straight and clear. I'm going to say, “Okay, Joe. The truth is, I love you.”

I'm going to do it. I am going to tell him.

“Okay, Joe,” I said. “What I needed to tell you was…”

Losing courage. Shoot shoot shoot shoot.

I need to do this. I mean, what type of relationship do we have if I can't tell him something as simple as a crush (well, more than one, but still)?

“I mean,” Joe said, “it's alright if you don't tell me, but I just thought that you'd trust me enough. I promise, Av, I won't laugh or anything.”

“Well,” I said, “okay. I'm just…the truth is…there's this guy.” I smiled. “And when he smiles, it's like the whole city could be lit from that smile and my insides feel like they're melting or something. And I love his hugs, his advice, everything. Joe, that guy…that guy is…” I hesitated.

Hrrrng. Come on Ava. Just say it. Say that three letter word. Y-O-U.

Just then, I heard a muffled “Ow!” outside of my door.

So, so close. I was this close to revealing my “little” crush on him. I don't know whether to be happy about this or not.

Joe sighed beside me and got up to open the door.

“Uh…hello!” Vanessa said once he opened the door.

“Don't mind us,” Kevin said, closing the door again.

Joe reopened the door. Vanessa and Kevin were still standing there. “Can you leave?” Joe asked tiredly.

“Fine,” Kevin and Vanessa said together and left.

Well. That completely ruined the whole situation. What is it with everyone and eavesdropping, anyways?

“You know what?” I said. “Nevermind.”

Joe sighed. “Okay, fine. But I need to tell you that that girl I was talking about is…” he faltered.

Is? Is? Who is it?

“Nevermind,” he finished.

Gah. He's right. I hate not knowing something about him.

I laid down onto the bed face down, groaning. Turning over on my side and reaching over, I switched my iPod on the iHome on. You Belong With Me immediately went on at full volume.

Huh. Right now, I was in the room with Joe, the guy I was head over heels with, listening to his ex's music. This situation just got way more awkward.

“That's nice, Ava,” Joe said. “Play Taylor's music in a time like this.”

“Dreaming 'bout the day, when you wake up and find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time,” I sang along, sitting up. “If you could see that I'm the one who understands you, been here all along, so why can't you see you belong with me?”

Story of my life.