Warm blurs of light play over the darkness of my closed eyelids. A warm summer breeze cools my skin, fighting to keep me comfortable against the sun's heat. The sounds of people swimming and children playing nearby make me feel like I could be any age, in any year, and the pool is simply an eternal place where summer never ends. Of course, things are a bit different this time. I can't relax like I used to while sunbathing. I don't even want to relax. A nervous and slightly painful excitement keeps jabbing me in random places, urging me to get up.
I crack an eye open and look over at Tara, lying on the towel next to mine. Her smooth, lightly browned, and slightly sweaty skin only increases my nervous excitement. Her long blonde hair flits in the breeze, so she can't see me looking at her. I look over, but linger mostly on her smooth chin and soft lips. I keep recalling how it felt to kiss her, and, sometimes, I can almost literally feel it on my own mouth like it's really happening. I wonder if I will ever get to kiss her again.
It's been like three days, and we haven't said a word about what happened. It hasn't been weird at all; in fact, she's been insanely flirty and we've been inseparable. It's been keeping me in a state of constant nervous excitement, but it's almost worse than an awkward falling out, because I have no idea where we stand. I'm not even sure which I want to talk about more – the fact that we had sex, or the fact that I said I loved her... and that she said it back. Oh, Angela, how do you get yourself into messes like these?
I'm not even sure what I should do or feel. Should I be flirty and happy? Should I be worried? Are we... together? How would that even work, the two of us... dating? The word 'dating' sounds so weird and scary in that context. How does a girl go about 'dating' her best friend, anyway?
"Hey," a male voice says from nearby my left side. I look over and see a guy that's about our age smiling and looking at me. He's wet from the pool, and has very nice abs. I swallow nervously, not sure what I should do or say.
"Uh... hello," I reply, and laugh nervously.
"I'm Dan," the guy says. "We're playing water basketball if you two want to join us."
"Uh, maybe in a minute," I say reflexively, very uncomfortable, and wondering what Tara is doing or thinking to my right. Dan finally turns around and runs back to the pool. I turn and look at Tara, and notice her watching him run back. She looks at me and grins.
"Hey, he's hot," she says suggestively. "I think he likes you!"
The bottom of my stomach literally falls into oblivion. I fight to keep a straight face. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to tell me something, Tara? Here I am going crazy wondering what's going on between us, and you're checking out guys? I feel a strong reaction coming on. I don't know what – throwing up, slapping her, running away, or just plain dying on the spot – but I fight to stay calm. Come on, Angela, you can't assume the worst! Tara's been sort of jealous of you and other guys for years, right? The tables are just turned for once, that's all. Right?
"Remember that one guy two summers ago?" she asks, even though I didn't say anything. "We always meet the cutest guys at the pool."
But then how could she want me for all those years, finally get me, and then not care anymore? How could we connect so deeply three days ago and now...? Something about this whole thing is starting to really piss me off. I just wish I knew anything for certain!
"I think I'm going to change my bathing suit," I tell her, lying. "This one is itching me."
She nods in response, her bright blue eyes completely innocent, as if to reflect the nonchalance of summer. Is she even thinking about any of the things that I'm in turmoil about? That really settles it – I'm pissed off. I don't want to go back to casual and fun-loving Angela and Tara. I don't want to go back to being flirty shallow girls at a pool. That was fine in high school, but the two of us are going to be seniors in college next year.
"Come with me?" I ask, faking innocence to match hers. She has no idea that I'm about to blow up on her and tell her off, and probably never talk to her again. I've seen her do some shitty things to the guys she was with in the last few years – never committing, leading them on, being almost callous sometimes – but I never thought she would pull the same thing on me. She was always a deep, interesting, normal person with me. I never saw this coming. She's hurt me, hellishly bad, in a way that I never expected. I have to clench my left hand to keep it shaking from anger.
"Okay," she says in agreement, and gets up to follow me.
The private changing room for girls is only forty feet away, but it feels like the longest walk of my life. I think about all the things we've been through as best friends in the past eight years. We weren't even best friends for all of those years – sometimes casual friends, sometimes enemies – am I just imagining all of this? But I can't be! I remember that quiet and dark night, our last year in high school, on the last trip we ever went on with our high school's ski club; by ourselves in a corner, her sad face framed against the big lodge window with its dark and snowy slopes - I was there when she got the call about her dad dying. I was the one she talked to. I was the one that was there for her, even though we had been fighting before that. That meant so much to me, mattering to someone so much like that. How could she throw that all away like it was nothing?
