“Cherry Blossoms.” (Past Friends Arc | Chapter 2)

I’m not sure what it was about that month. It felt like everything around me was heightened. Maybe it was the month itself, or her influence, that drove me. I wasn’t sure.

Right there, in the middle of March, we stood face to face as I spewed out my feelings. My disgusting feelings for another girl.

While I continued speaking, telling her my deepest desires that I wished to share with her, only one thought raced through my mind: did she think I was weird? 

Strange?

Maybe she had. Perhaps I even believed myself to be strange as well.

I didn’t find myself interested in men or women specifically. But she awoke something in me. Even now, I don’t think I’d say that I like girls. 

I… I just liked her. That was all.

Once I finished regurgitating my foul feelings to her, she grew silent. As the silence grew, I admittedly began panning my head down, until I began staring at my toes, while gripping the sides of my skirt. 

I knew that this would be a bad idea, yet I still went along with it. Why? Why hadn't I kept my feelings to myself?

But before I could get lost in my pessimistic thoughts, in that instant… she agreed.

Something about the way she grabbed my right hand--still in the middle of trembling, then proclaimed:

“Sure, Mei. If that’s what you want.”

Resonates deeply within me, even to this day.

In the middle of the spring weather, both our hearts were in full bloom. But just as temporary as the months were, we were strangers again by May. A love that hadn’t even lasted 3 months.

I stared at the girl standing right in front of me, still holding my right hand, with a smile as sweet as candy. But just as I blinked, she grew in size--no longer holding my hand. But she was still as cute as she was that day. 

My right hand--previously interlocked with hers--was now being weighed down by bagged ice cream that had most likely melted by now.

It was now June, and like the ice cream, I was also melting.