She'd gone and done it.
She dropped the bomb, the "L" bomb. How the hell did this even happen? He was acting weird, she could already tell. Running his hands through his hair, shifting his weight from foot to foot, but most of all avoiding looking at her, looking into her eyes in particular.
His face was stricken, he looked shocked, confused and lost all at the same time. His eyes were everywhere but on her.
Her headphones were in, at least one was but she couldn't hear the music. Just sounds.
"Star," he began, looking at his shoes... "Where did... We're friends.. You're my best friend, I don't want to jeopardise that"
"yeah," she said her voice barely a whisper.
"We've been friends for so long, Star, you understand..." he looked at her now. His eyes pleading for what he couldn't say. He just didn't feel it. She knew.
"listen I gotta go, I'll call you okay?" he said, pulling her into a brief hug.
"I'm sorry star," he whispered in her ear before letting her go.
She watched him walk away, still dumfounded.
It wasn't until he turned the corner that she finally heard the music. You dropped a bomb on me by the gap band.
Oh, the irony!
She turned and walked in the opposite direction.
What the hell just happened?
****************************
3 Months earlier...
"I got em!!" Star was jumping up and down ecstatic clutching her phone. She nearly knocked it out the wall.
"You and I are officially going to see the purple one live in concert next weekend! Are you gonna die from excitement or what???"
"Fuck off star!" the voice on the phone countered. "those tickets have been sold out for weeks! There's no fucking way!"
"you better believe it baby! And I really had to go through some things to get these tickets so you better worship the ground I walk on!"
"okay I'm on my way over right now, I gotta see this!"
"kay, I'll see you in a sec."
Star hung up the phone and snuggled into her plush couch. Things were going so well! She just started a new job which allowed her to move into a bigger better apartment. She'd been living on her own since she was 18, and now sitting her cozy apartment, she took a look around. Everything was so her. From the bright colourful walls, to the peculiar yet enigmatic art on them. Her family would say, she threw whatever together and called it decorating, but she felt that everything had it's place in her house. From the iron and glass coffee and end table set to the African sculptures and masks.
The building was perfect. Not to mention her very best friend lived in the same building. As if on cue, her front door opened and he walked in.
"alrighty, hand em over!" he said a huge smile on his face.
She took a second to take him in.
Micah was beautiful. His blonde hair which was once long and shaggy in that surfer type of way was now cut short and almost always styled into fauxhawk. He changed his style as the wind blew and she loved it. His smile made more than a few girls swoon, big dimples in each cheek, perfect white teeth and his green eyes were memorizing.
She could never keep anything from him, he could always tell, it was funny though, he never knew the one thing that was right in front of him...
"Earth to star!" he said.
She grinned. "They're in my bedroom Mikey!"
He took off down the hall and star took the opportunity to take a look at his ass. And what a nice ass it was. Her family used to tease him about it all the time.
"That boy got some black in him somewhere! Someone's lying!" her aunt would say.
"granny musta been creepin, cause I seen his parents and they ain't got it like that!" was her mothers usual remark.
It really was that nice though. The kind you gotta hold on to with both hands. He would always laugh it off. His excuse was her mothers cooking.
"this," he'd say pointing to his butt, "was not here before I met you!"
They'd been friends since milli vanilli. When they were in middle school, she'd played purple rain for him. It was over for him from then on. They watched the movie over and over until she broke her mothers vcr trying to dub the movie for him.
When they turned 16 she worked for eight months to get him a guitar for his birthday. Not just any old piece of shit guitar, something found in local pawn shops. No, she'd gotten him a custom made gibson guitar that cost much more than she could afford even after 8 months of saving.
In the end, she had to persuade her mother into putting in the other half.
And now they were going to see their idol, the purple one, the one and only prince, live and in concert!
He came back into the living room, clutching the tickets in his hands and a strange look on his face.
"micah, you okay?" star asked rising from her seat.
"yeah," he said sitting down beside her.
She turned to him trying to change his strange mood.
"okay, picture this," she said closing her eyes.
"your standing in the midst of throngs of people, the guy liner and glitter is everywere!"
She sneaks a look at him and sees his eyes open, watching her.
"you know, this will work better if you actually close your eyes,"
He continued to look at her in that way... like he was seeing her for the first time. It was unnerving. Finally he closed his eyes.