I'll Never Say I Love You

“Tahara loves me, so she’ll do what I want her to do,” Kyle said smugly, smirking at Alex.

I felt disappointed in myself. How had I trapped myself like this?

Alex let out a short, dark laugh. “You can’t control her, Kyle. Tahara is a free person, and she’ll do whatever makes her happy,” he said.

Kyle smiled a sick, twisted smile that I had never seen before. “I’m quite sure that what will make Tahara happy is seeing me happy, right dear?” he asked, looking at me blankly.

‘Please don’t fight,’ I signed, ignoring his question and looking at him pleadingly. I turned to Alex and repeated myself. I didn’t want to see the two of the most important people in my life fighting, let alone they be fighting over me.

Alex hesitated. “If that’s what you want, Tahara,” he said eventually. “I’ll meet you at the usual spot tomorrow.” He gave me a small smile and turned to walk away.

“Like I said, Roberts,” Kyle said, taking another step forward. “You’re not going to be seeing her tomorrow.”

Alex turned around with a face angrier than I had ever seen on him. “How do you intend on enforcing that, Thompson?” he asked, his voice lower and angrier than I had ever heard it. “You can’t control me, and you can’t control Tahara. Short of putting one of us on a leash and tying us to the nearest fire hydrant, you can’t do anything to either one of us.”

Kyle shrugged. “If you want to wear a leash like the dog you are, then so be it,” he said casually, shrugging as though it was nothing to him. “But Tahara will not be seeing you anymore.”

I gaped at him, shocked. I clapped to get his attention. ‘You can’t do that,’ I signed angrily.

Of all the things he could do, he smiled at me. His eyes lit up, the specks dancing the way he knew I loved them. “It’s for your own good, Tahara,” he murmured, reaching out to take my hand in his.

“Tarie, you’re not really going to fall for that, are you?’ Alex asked, stepping closer to me. It was then that I noticed that we had a small gathering of people around us, obviously expecting a fight.

I tried to answer, but I seemed to be frozen out of shock.

Kyle turned his gaze back to Alex, glaring at him. “I’ve seen the way you look at her, Roberts,” he said coldly. “You’ll probably deny it until the day you die, but you love her.”

My head whipped in Alex’s direction. He now seemed to be frozen as well.

“I’m not going to let anything that has a chance of ruining my relationship with Tahara get in the way,” Kyle continued, jumping over the bench. He and Alex were now no more than a metre apart, yet Alex did not move. My head whipped back and forth between the two of them. “You, Roberts, are a threat to my happiness.”

‘Kyle, stop,’ I signed. ‘This is ridiculous. Alex is just my friend.’

“He’s just your friend, Tahara, but you’re something more than that to him,” Kyle said, looking down at me.

Alex scoffed. “Are you really that insecure in your relationship that you have to blame me and my feelings?” he accused.

This comment seemed to rub Kyle the wrong way, and he snapped. “You listen to me. I don’t want you coming anywhere near Tahara. I don’t want you phoning her, emailing her, anything. I want you to stay the hell away.”

Alex and I were both taken aback. Kyle wasn’t serious, was he? I knew that he and Alex had never been fans of one another, but surely he knew that we were just very close friends? I looked pleadingly at Alex, begging him not to give in to this madness.

“And what if I don’t stay away, Kyle?” Alex sneered, but I could see that he was every bit as scared of losing me as I was of losing him.

Kyle did not answer, but instead started cracking his knuckles.

‘Stop it, both of you,’ I signed, standing between them and flicking my shrilled face between the two of them. At least, I hoped it looked shrill and panicked – all I felt was fear.

Kyle grabbed me around the waist and effortlessly pulled me towards him. “The same goes for you, Tahara,” Kyle said sternly, not taking his eyes off Alex. “No talking, no signing, no nothing, got it?”

‘You can’t do this! He’s my best friend!’ I signed in protest.

At that moment, I hated Kyle for knowing my weaknesses, as he looked sad. I could tell it was just a charade, but at the same time, it affected me badly. He knew I hated to see him sad. He knew that when he was sad, that I was just play-dough in his strong hands, and he was able to mould me into whatever he wanted. Was this the guiding principle behind our relationship for him? The fact that he knew that he could control me with a look or a few choice words? Alex, too, could control me that way, but he and I both knew that he would never use it maliciously, like Kyle was now.

“Tahara,” Kyle began sadly, pouting slightly. “You don’t want to ruin our relationship, do you?”

I looked frantically at Alex, pleading for some help with my eyes. Unfortunately for me, he looked defeated. He knew that with that look, Kyle had me under his control. I could see that he knew he could have used that fabulous smile of his, but that he wasn’t going to stoop to that level. He would never treat me the way Kyle had today, as though I was nothing more than his property.

“I’ll be waiting,” Alex murmured. “The second she gets sick of you, and she will, I’ll be there to comfort her and win her back.”

“You ever come into contact with her again, and I will know about it,” Kyle said threateningly to Alex.

Wordlessly, Alex turned and walked away. Tears started rolling down my cheeks, burning my skin. I wanted to scream, to tell him to come back and fight for what he believed in. I wanted to chase after him and tell him that he was making the wrong decision by giving in to scare tactics and empty threats. My Kyle wouldn’t even hurt a fly.

Then again, my Kyle would never have threatened Alex either.

So who exactly was gripping my waist?

“We’re going to be just fine now, dear,” Kyle said, kissing the tip of my ear.

But I knew that without Alex, nothing was going to be fine.

***

When the bell rang at the end of the day, I went to the library hopefully. I wanted to meet up with Alex, walk home and spend the afternoon with him. I wanted to believe that the argument at lunch hadn’t really happened, and he would be there. I wanted to believe that he had decided to ignore Kyle, and he would be there. I wanted to believe that no matter what happened, he was going to be there.

But he never showed.

I waited until half an hour after the school bell rang, and then gave up. I slid down the wall I was leaning against and held my legs to my chest, resting my forehead against my knees. The only other time I had felt this rejected was when I had tried to tell Alex how I felt, all those years ago, and he had laughed it off. The pain washed over me, enveloping me as though I was a letter of despair. I felt my eyes begin to water, but the tears never came. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream and shout until every drop of frustration and sadness inside me had floated into the universe, never to be seen again. But the tears just never came. Maybe I had cried enough for one day, and my tear ducts would explode if I cried anymore. I liked the idea of self-preservation.

“Miss. Anderson?”

I looked up when I heard the familiar voice calling me and saw Mrs. Lake walking towards me. I gave her a small, unenthusiastic wave.

To my surprise, she sat down beside me. “Anything you need to talk about, Tahara?” she asked, staring straight ahead.

I shook my head. I didn’t want to involve her with my problems, even if she had become my favourite teacher.

“I know about what happened at lunch,” she said.

I snapped my head towards her, looking at her quizzically. She was a teacher, and I hadn’t seen her all day. How on earth could she know?

“Some of Kyle’s friends from grade eleven were in my class after lunch, and I couldn’t help but overhear them,” she admitted. Her wiry little curls bounced as she turned to face me. “Wrong of me, I know, but it sounded like it would be tormenting for you.”

I nodded in agreement.

“So, I know exactly who Kyle is. But this Alex guy...who is he, exactly?”

Weird as I felt talking to a teacher about my problems, it felt good to be able to talk to someone neutral. So I pulled out my notepad. He’s my best friend who has fallen in love with me, I wrote. Better to be honest.

Mrs. Lake read what I wrote and nodded. “How do you feel about him?” she asked.

I went to write that he was just a friend, but something stopped me. For years now, Alex had been so much more than a friend. Since Kyle had entered my life, I had started treating Alex as just like every other friend. Under the surface though, I still loved him. You couldn’t make the feelings I had for him just disappear under a blanket like some magician’s trick. Now that I had assurance he felt the same way, those feelings were now fighting their way towards the forefront. But at the same time, I really liked Kyle, and enjoyed what we had together. I wasn’t ready to label myself as being in love, though Kyle seemed only too happy to do that for me. Another control mechanism, I wondered?

“That complicated, huh?” Mrs. Lake asked.

I snapped out of my thoughts and noticed that my pen was still poised above the notepad, and probably had been for a length of time. I nodded sadly in answer to her question.

“Is Kyle the reason you haven’t been talking to your friends as much during class?” she asked.

I nodded again.

Mrs. Lake ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know what I would do if I were in your shoes, Tahara,” she admitted. “Then again, despite the not-talking thing, you’re a lot more mature than what I was when I was fifteen. Think about it for a while, and make sure you take every last little detail into consideration. You can only hope that your choice is clear after that.” She smiled at me.

‘Thank you,’ I signed, smiling weakly back at her. She shook her head indicating she didn’t know what I meant. Thanks, I wrote on the notepad.

“Not a problem,” she said, and pushed herself off the ground. “I’ll try and remember that one.” She walked backwards away from me, signing thank you until she rounded a corner and went out of my line of sight.

Whether she knew it or not – and she probably did know it – Mrs. Lake had given me a lot to think about. I needed to assess everything, and then figure out where I stood with whom before I made any decisions. I vowed to ignore both of the boys tonight while I made my decisions. The organised side of me went into overdrive – oh, the delight of pros and con charts! Then, once I made the decision that was best for as many people as it could be – I doubted any one decision would make everyone happy – I would stick to it.

All I could hope for was that I made the right decision.