Something Ends, Another Begins

I quickly ran inside the house and shut the door behind me, as if someone or something was chasing me. With my back pressed against the door, I noticed that my hands were still violently shaking and my heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to explode. I still could not fully comprehend what had just happened twenty minutes ago. All that was going through my mind was how I let Cameron kiss me, even though I have never seen him in any way other than a friend. I ran upstairs to my room, grabbed my cell phone, and quickly dialed Jenny's phone number.

After two rings, I heard Jenny sing, "Hello, Ali."

"Hey," I replied, "stay on the line. I'm calling Christie."

"Okay," Jenny said slowly, seemingly confused.

Christie answered on the first ring. "Hey," she said happily.

"Hey, Chris. Jenny's on the line, too," I said.

Jenny and Christie exchanged greetings before it was completely silent. I was trying to figure out exactly how to bring up the situation calmly and subtly.

"Ali?" Jenny asked. "Is everything okay? What did you need to talk to us about?"

"Um," I said, laying down on my bed hoping that would calm me down a little. It didn't. "Okay, here's the thing." I paused. "What had happened was..." my voice trailed off and it was silent again.

"Just spit it out, Ali," Christie said.

I took a big breath before finally announcing, "Cameron and I kissed."

I don't know if it was Jenny or Christie, but someone gasped before both of them shouted, "What?!"

I stayed quiet, not knowing what else to say. "Are you serious?" Jenny asked. "How did that happen?"

"I don't know, okay? I'm just so confused right now, I don't know what to do! You guys have to tell me what to do. Help me!"

"Okay, Ali, you have to calm down," Christie said slowly. "Just take a breath and tell us everything that happened from the beginning."

I listened to Christie and took a deep breath before finally getting all of my thoughts together. "Okay," I began starting to feel a little more calm than before, "I went over Cameron's house a couple hours ago so we could study for our Physics test tomorrow. After about an hour and a half of studying, we decided to take a break. I've noticed that he's been acting really quiet and distant not only tonight but for the past week. I asked him about it and he eventually admitted that he was thinking about some girl that he apparently likes. I kept bothering him to tell me who she is and he tells me that her name is Ali. After that, we somehow started kissing and once I realized what was happening and got the hell out of there."

"Wow," Christie and Jenny said in unison, stunned.

"I know. He could have been talking about another Ali, right? There's tons and tons of Alis at school."

"Ali," Christie said. "If Cameron says he likes a girl named Ali and then kisses you, it's more than likely he likes you."

"But, that's impossible," I groaned. "Ever since we were thirteen, Cameron and I hated each others' guts. How the hell has he suddenly fallen for me?"

"Well, you know what they say," Jenny chimed in, "Usually, a guy is only mean to a girl and pretends to hate her when he's actually crushing on her."

"Oh, please," I scoffed. "That saying is only meant for elementary school kids."

"Actually, Ali, I'm going to have to agree with Jen," Christie stated.

"What? Why?"

"Well, to be prefectly honest, I can't say I'm that surprised Cam likes likes you." I didn't say anything and waited for her to continue. "You guys just have that chemistry and romantic tension whenever you two are together. Trust me, I've noticed the way Cam looks at you when you're not looking and how you're, like, the only person he's ever opened up to. He definitely wasn't like that with me when we were going out."

Right after Christie finished speaking, I gasped. "Oh my God, Chris, I am so sorry. I totally broke the girl code."

"What are you talking about?" Christie asked.

"The girl code strictly states that a girl must never, ever kiss a friend's ex," I explained.

"Yeah, if that so called friend had actual, deep feelings for so called ex, which I did not. So, you're off the hook."

I sighed. "I still feel really bad." I paused and remembered what Christie was saying before. "What do you mean Cameron and I have chemistry and romantic tension?"

Jenny and Christie both started laughing. "You honestly have never realized it before?" Jenny asked. "If a stranger were to see you two together, they would think you guys are dating."

I didn't understand how they could actually be laughing and joking around about this. "Do you guys seriously not understand the severity of this situation? Cameron and I just kissed, something I thought would never happen in a billion years. Cameron is Josh's best friend. I am in love with Josh and I kissed his best friend. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I actually enjoyed the kiss. This is not good!"

Christie and Jenny grew silent. "Ali," Christie said, "I think you're going to have to figure this one out on your own. We don't know exactly what you're feeling. You're still in love with Josh and yet, you made out with Cam. So, the way I see it, you have two options: you can either forget the kiss ever happened and just go on like normal, which I personally don't think you should do---"

Jenny interrupted and added, "Or, you could talk to Cam about it and take some time to figure out exactly what you want, which is probably the best choice."

I sighed again, loudly and ran a hand through my hair out of frustration. How did my life get so complicated once again in a matter of hours?

***

The next day, at school, I stood waiting in front of my locker. I was blankly staring at the dirty tile floor in front of me while tightly clutching the handle to my shoulder bag. I'm pretty sure I only got about an hour of sleep the previous night, which is not good if you have a major Physics test in the morning. For the most part, I knew how to handle the whole Cameron situation. The worst part, however, was actually facing him.

"Ali?" I heard a soft, low voice say to my right.

Startled, I jumped a little. I turned and saw Cameron, who looked a little concerned.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine." I couldn't bring myself to look directly in his eyes. I knew that if I were to look at his cute face, I would want to kiss him again, which is not what I wanted. There was this unbearable, awkward silence between us. I knew I had to say something, but no words were coming out of my mouth.

"I'm guessing by the awkward silence and the fact that you won't even look at me, you have something to say and it's not good."

I finally forced myself to look at him. By the way he was looking at me, I could tell he somewhat knew what I was going to say to him. "About last night," I began.

"Look, we don't have to---"

"Please, let me finish, okay? I need to say this." Cameron nodded and waited patiently for me to continue. "Last night, you said some things that were both shocking and wonderful. To be honest, there is a part of me that didn't want that kiss to end."

Cameron smiled a little and looked down, shyly.

"But," I said and his smile started to fade, "I'm still in love with Josh. I'm really confused, right now. And I need to figure out how I feel about you...about us."

Cameron was silent for a while before he hesitantly whispered, "Do you think you could ever feel the same way I feel about you, at all?"

"I honestly don't know. Before last night I thought I only liked you as a friend and before I liked you as a friend we were practically rivals, now I have no idea. That's what I want to figure out but, I can't do that when we're still hanging out together."

"What are you saying?" Cameron asked, looking confused.

I noticed my hands started to shake more violently than they were a couple of seconds ago. "I'm saying that maybe it's best if we just go our separate ways for a while. Not hanging out, not talking. I just feel that this way, it will give me time to figure out what I need to figure out. If we keep hanging out after what happened last night, I'll just get even more confused and frustrated."

Concern crossed over Cameron's eyes. "Ali, I don't want to stop hanging out with you. I thought that telling you how I feel was the right thing to do."

"It was the right thing to do. But, to be honest, it just made things complicated."

"I can forget the kiss ever happened, if that's what you want. I can at least try. I can also try to erase all of my feelings for you, really. I just don't want us to stop seeing each other. Please, Ali."

I sighed. "I don't want either of us to forget the kiss, Cameron. It's not like we're never going to talk again. This is just temporary. But I feel like I need to do this." It looked like Cameron was about to say something else, but before he could, I quickly turned my back towards him and started walking away from my locker and towards my first period class.

As I sat in my seat silently in my Physics class, waiting for the tests to be handed out, I couldn't help but feel like I had broken up with someone I wasn't even in a relationship with. I have never broken up with someone before and if breaking up with someone you're not in a relationship with feels this terrible, I can't imagine how bad it is to break up with someone you are in a relationship with.

While everyone else around me was hard at work answering the test questions, I just stared at my blank test paper.

My mind was definitely not focused on "finding the acceleration due to gravity".