Friends Before Lovers

10 Years Ago

“Can I kiss you?” Zacky asked, smirking as he bent down to block my view of my homework. He’d always been like this but he never seemed to get my hints.

“Why would I want that, Baker?” I asked, ignoring him so I could solve problem nine on my math sheet, only three more and I was done.

“Because you know you love me?” he responded, laughing as I shoved his face away from me yet again.

“Yes, Zachary. I love you like I love the common cold,” I grumbled hovering over my page so he wouldn’t get in my way again. I didn’t like him flirting with me. Zacky was supposed to be my friend, nothing else.

“What’s wrong with you, Ace?” he asked sitting down beside me at the study table, he leaned in and tilted his head to see my face. His head moved up when I leaned up to look into his beautiful clear eyes.

“You’re my Zacky; you’re not supposed to flirt with me or try to kiss me. You’re supposed to just be my friend, stop it,” I was getting aggravated with him. Ever since Beth and Brian made us play truth or dare at Beth’s eighteenth birthday party while we were drunk and they dared us to make out, he’d been aggressively getting worse with his flirting. Now I couldn’t ignore it, he was so blunt with it.

“I’ll always be your Zacky,” he told me softly, giving me a little grin. “But I’ll always want you to be more than my friend and I'll never stop until you give in.”

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Ten years ago, well I wasn’t as bitter and I wasn’t as mean to Zacky as I am now. He’s tried for ten years to make me admit that I want to be with him but I never have, I can’t. No matter how attractive I may think he is, how sweet and gentle he may be, I can’t agree to love him when I know he can do better than someone as broken as me.

Over the years, I’ve hardened my heart to the men that have used me. The things I’ve been called, the things that I have done to myself. The one thing that has always been constant is him and I don’t want it to change, I don’t want to chance losing him. I would rather pretend for a second that there was nothing ever there than lose him forever after having him. I could deal with the fact that I could never have Zacky but I couldn’t deal with the fact that I loved him and lost him. So for years, I’ve destroyed his hopes just to save him the torture of being with someone like me.

But I think I’m cracking, I think I’m finally falling for him.