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The increasingly crowded party threw a bucket of cold water over our truth or dare game, though. I didn’t mind it so much. Not when the couple screaming at each other in the corner of the yard and a group of cute, drunk guys thinking it was a good idea to walk through fire were providing more than enough entertainment.
I looked down at my phone and unlocked the screen, pulling up my texts with Neil, and proceeded to stare at them pathetically. Or the lack of them over the last few days, to be more accurate. Aside from a fewgood morningandgood nighttexts we’d exchanged.
“I dare you to tell him you love him,” Sydney whispered as she bumped her shoulder into mine.
“I do not—”
She threw her hand up. “Nice try, but I can see right through you.”
My mouth—that was still hanging half open in mid-sentence—fell closed. I guess she had a point.Neon red sign, anyone?It was definitely flashing across my forehead. Didn’t change the fact that her suggestion was insane.
“I’m still not doing that, though,” I said. No way in hell.
She shrugged, not all that invested in pushing the matter further. “A drink then?” she asked.
“Sure.” I shrugged right back.
She got up and made her way through the crowd of bodies, disappearing into the house in search of some drinks.
I glanced back down at my phone. Staring at it for one… two… three… far too many seconds.
I love you,I eventually typed out the words, curious how they felt. They were terrifying. Also kind of liberating.
My heart was beating like a caged drum, echoing through my limbs, daring me to pushsend.Three small words, eight tiny letters, and somehow, they held so much weight. A weight that was clawing at my insides.
I had half a mind to do it. Hitsendand get it over with and let that weight settle onto Neil’s shoulders instead.
I swallowed, actually contemplating it even though it was crazy but settling onno way in hell. Because again, it was crazy.
That, and… when it came down to it, I was too scared.
Chicken-shit.
Sydney slammed into me with a loud cackle, and my finger slid over the screen in what literally felt like slow motion. Panic seized my chest as I looked down at my message, now surrounded in a bubble of blue.
“Shit.Shit, shit, shit!” The single word from my mouth got increasingly louder.
“What?” Sydney looked down at my phone in confusion and then gasped. “Oh, shit,” she breathed. “Wait. Wait!” she was saying, but I was too busy diving head-first into a panic attack. My hands were shaking, and so were my breaths, and my vision was currently going sideways.
What the hell did I justdo?!
“Look. Look!” she shouted, prying my phone from my death-grip and holding it in my face. “Your.It autocorrected toyour. Look.”
My eyes focused in on the text.
I love your
No period, no declaration.Holy shit, maybe there was a God.
I snatched my phone out of her hands and quickly added:screenplay. I still can’t stop thinking about it.
“That was… dramatic,” Sydney said with a roll of her eyes. “I mean, would it really have been so bad if you’d actually sent it?” She moved behind me and pulled my head back into her stomach, running her fingers through my scalp.
I let out a sigh. “I don’t know. Probably.”
“Spoiler alert” —she stole two of my favorite words— “I’m pretty damn sure he feels the same way, Olli.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. He asked me to befriends,Syd. What if he changes his mind and wants it to stay that way? I don’t really want to be dicked around again.”