What if...

The conversation had gone better than they feared it might be. No awkwardness, just the easy going freeness they had before feelings got involved.
Edmund was glad. He’d finally put her in that place in his mind where he knew he would always wonder ‘what if’, may even compare her slightly to other girls, but he would never be with her. She rejected him, and anything that comes from her now wouldn’t be truly felt. He was happy that he was now able to relax around her and be even more so himself, without worrying about feelings, or of course the awkward newness they’d had right from the very start.
He forced himself not to think of the ‘what if’ from that time, the what if he’d said something to her back then, and what if she hadn’t thought that it was a rebound thing...
“Heya,” Sarah said with a smile. After their conversation they felt safe to see each other again, without the fear of seeming like the weird one with the crush on the other.
“Hey,” he said with a smile.
“Did you get that song title in the end?” she asked, thinking back to their previous conversation, as though to firmly place that they had had conversations before, a connection they shared.
“What? Oh yeah. It was the death tune in the end,” he smiled back. They’d spent ages wondering where they had heard a song before, they managed to narrow it down to the film, but couldn’t remember where in the film it had been. Edmund managed to find it not too long after she’d signed off.
“After all that...” she said, now thinking how obvious it was now that she knew the answer.
“Yeah,” Edmund said, worrying that his effortless friendship with her was going to have a terrible awkward silence creep between them. She then went serious.
“Look, Edmund. I know that ages ago...I...I was worried that what you said was...” it was at this point that Edmund could see where this was going, but didn’t want to stop in case he was wrong. He hoped so much that he was wrong, “well that it was just after you were...Sorry, I’m making a total mess of this,” she blushed.
“Sarah, what are you trying to say?” Edmund asked, whatever she intended to say had to be said now, no matter how bad.
“I shouldn’t have said no to you tall that time ago,” she babbled, and Edmund knew then that he had made no mistake, she was actually going down that road, “I suppose...will you go out with me?”
“This is why you started chatting to me again,” Edmund said almost disappointedly. he felt that she sort of always dictated when they spoke, so he was happy that she was talking to him again. Now it seemed so tainted by her intention, all that awkwardness was back now.
“Well, not just that...” she began. She knew it would be a huge mistake, she was about to lose her friend all over again.
“I...I’m sorry Sarah,” he said, she from that moment knew that to find her insides she’d have to scrabble on the floor, and for Edmund he knew he had to say it fast before he lost his nerve, “I’ve spent all this time getting over you,” he explained. And it was true. There was still that part in him that liked her, but after the rejection it had shifted something in his mind that made him feel more over her.
“That’s...that’s fine. I suppose I rejected you, so it’s my fault really...” Sarah said awkwardly, hoping to get away from the conversation as quickly as possible in case she were to do something stupid like cry. She’d been working up to this so much, expecting the yes, hoping to finally be with him, even for a short while.
“Sorry,” Edmund said sincerely.
“No, my fault. Don’t...don’t worry about it,” Sarah said, feeling every word. She didn’t want him to think about it at all, she felt terribly embarrassed. On top of that she also felt horribly heart broken. She’d allowed herself to like him because he once told her that he liked her - but it was just a reaction to rejection that he’d had himself. How could she have been so stupid as to get that carried away?
Edmund watched her leave, and he started to get over the shock.
Then he realised that shock was easy to get over. Sarah never would be.
He had already started to doubt his own answer.
He should have said yes.
Should he?
Yes.