Scared of happy...

She stared at the amber bottle in front of her. The liquid inside offered her warmth, but she wasn’t sure she wanted that tonight. She just felt empty. Again. The last time she’d been this lonely, she’d shoed him, sent him packing, and told him to make sure the door hit his ass on the way out. It sucked, it hurt, but this hurt infinitely more.

How could she love someone so much, so completely, and he not love her in return? Why was it that when she finally realized that there was a good man in her life and that she could be happy with him, he didn’t want her? It wasn’t his fault, he wasn’t cruel… In fact, he was unfailingly kind as he stared his best friend in her face and said what he had to say, “If I could pick who I loved, it would be you. You are so perfect for me, and… and I know that. We’re good together. Really good. We mesh. We work. But while I love you, I’m not in love with you. I wish I was. I really wish I was.”

He was silent for a moment while he watched a tear-drop drip off of her chin and looked up into her eyes which looked greener than they normally did because they were rimmed in red. “Oh, kid, I wanna love you. I know why you’re so sad; I’m sad too. I can imagine what it would be like to be in love with you. I know how you love, I know what you’d be for me, and I know what I’d be for you. We’d work. I want us to work. But it’s not fair. It’s not fair to you. I can’t try to give you something I don’t have…”

“I know,” she said, willingly looking at him in the eyes for the first time since they’d started talking, “I know that if you could give it to me you would. There were no promises between us. Just friendship and sex… Great sex,” she laughed at little as she thought of that first night that the repressed sexual tension of a 10-year-long friendship had exploded between, “but I needed you to know that it wasn’t just that for me anymore. I love you. I think I was meant to love you from the moment we met. Just let me love you, because I can’t do anything else.”

They were silent for a while. She leaned back against the arm of the sofa and watched him as he stared at the amber bottle in his hand, slumped over on the couch next to her. The light from the candles on the square coffee table reflected through the bottle and made it obvious that he’d barely touched his beer. He looked at her, his sadness truly evident for the first time. “Kid, I’ve met someone… I think she’s the one. I can’t be anything but your best friend anymore.”

So she stared at her bottle. The tears streamed down her face, her heart cold in her chest and her cheeks warm. She closed her eyes, took a sip of her beer, and let the slightly warm, very hoppy liquid roll around her mouth. She felt it begin to warm her. And she took another sip. And another. She put the bottle down. Tears still streaming down her face, she faced him again, and leaned over, kissed him simply on the mouth. Staying close, she took his hands and placed them on her face—over those two patches of warmth that emotion had brought forth and the beer had intensified. His breathing quickened and she could feel his pulse ticking in his wrists. “I love you. I wish I could change that, but I can’t. I hope you’re happy with her. That’s all I ask, is that you be happy.”

His eyes dipped from hers to her mouth, and back to her eyes. “You make me doubt,” he looked at her lips again, “you make me wonder if I really love her.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want her this much. I can’t see a future with her. I just know she makes me giddy and excited and she makes me feel like I could do anything.”

She looked down, knowing that what she was going to say and do now would be the hardest things she’d ever spoken to her best friend, “It’s because you’re scared to be happy. You’ve always been scared to be happy. It’s why you’ve never had a successful relationship, why you run when someone says they have feelings. It’s why you’re scared of what you feel for me. You can see a future with me, and it’s a happy one. You’re scared of that. I hate that about you. I hate that you can’t let yourself be happy. And I hate that I’m in love with you because I know that I can make you happy and you won’t take it!” Her voice had gotten steadily louder until she was nearly yelling, her hands gripped tightly on his wrists, and her lips trembled.

Keeping his hands gentle on her cheeks, he started to pull her lips toward his. Her eyes flew up, and met his. With their lips a whisper apart, and their noses touching he said, “Then show me how to be happy… Teach me not to be afraid of it. I don’t want to lose you, and I know if I let you go tonight I will. I’ll lose my best friend who is also the best lover I’ve ever had, and the most generous woman I’ve ever met. Teach me how to be happy…” and he kissed her.