Friends Can Be More

“We’re back!” Lillian’s cheery voice popped from the front door, and I pushed Jackson before I could even think, going back to the counter and trying to act natural when I had almost let my stepbrother kiss me. 

Jackson sighed, and from the corner of my eye, I saw him running his hand through his hair before he came back to the cutting board. 

“I didn't expect the queue to be so long by this time of the evening,” Lilian said as she and my father came into the kitchen, two bags in his hands. 

She paused, and I raised my head to her, my heart skipping a beat when I thought she might have noticed something off between us. 

She was staring at Jackson with a pout. “Jackson, you’ve barely gone through half of it!”

“Sorry,” he muttered without raising his head from the broad, his jaw slightly clenched. He wasn't even trying to hide his irritation. “I got distracted.” 

“What distracted you?” my father asked casually, and Jackson’s hands paused. He raised his head slowly to my father, his eyes filled with things he wasn't afraid my father would see.

“My personal business,” he answered, his voice harsh. They stared at each other, my father trying to keep his face relaxed, but I could see the little tells that no one else could. It would seem Jackson was beginning to get under his skin. 

“Okay, let’s get back to dinner,” Lilian said, a little too loud, cutting through the tension. I could tell she noticed the tension between these two and was just playing oblivious. 

Jackson looked away, chopping the vegetables harder than needed, and I wanted to be anywhere but here. I wanted this night to be over as soon as possible. 

~.~

Life went on after that night like it always has: school, café, work. I did the daily routine, did what I was supposed to, talked to the people I couldn't ignore, and I couldn't stop thinking about that night. 

What would have happened if Lilian hadn't chosen that moment to return? Would he have kissed me, and I would have let him? Then, what would have happened next when we crossed that line we shouldn't have?

Will we act like nothing happened? Because that’s how we were both acting right now. We were barely in the same space again after that night, but in the few times we have seen each other, none of us said anything about that fragile moment. 

Also, Jackson and I seem to have formed a routine. 

Well… he did. 

After practice, he would come to the same bench I always sat on, drop his bag, and sit with me. I tried to make him stop, to make him act like he didn't know me on campus, but nothing got through that thick skull of his.

Eventually, I just let him be. 

Seeing as he was already popular, and girls still tried to get his attention, I would say I was worried for nothing. Plus-sized girls with strange fathers seem to be the only people seen as outcasts. 

We didn't talk to each other, and would just sit still until I left first. Sometimes I had a book with me; sometimes I was having lunch. And every time he came empty-handed, trying to act like he wasn't stealing glances at me. 

Today was the same, but with a twist. 

He got there before me. 

I stood and stared at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Practice was canceled today,” he answered the unasked question, and I nodded, sitting beside him. I also noticed he was sitting a bit too close to my corner. I ignored it as I pulled out a book.

But Jackson seemed to have other plans today, and wasn't going to let me read in silence.

“Do you have any friends, Siri?” he asked softly, his eyes burning into the side of my face.

My hand paused as I opened the book. “No. You?”

“I don’t.”

I glanced at him. “Despite the many people always surrounding you?”

“Yes. Despite that. None of that shit is genuine.”

I nodded, because I understood. Everybody wants to be seen with the popular, handsome guy. Everybody wants to say, “Oh, Jackson? Yeah, I know him.” But nobody actually wanted to know him, or be friends with him either.

I almost felt sorry for the bastard. Almost. 

I opened my book.

“Why don’t you have any friends?”

This time, I turned fully to him, and our knees bumped. I ignored that touch, even though it burned.

“Is this your way of trying to know me?” I asked, not bothering to hide my irritation. 

He didn't seem bothered by my attitude. “Yes. Is it bad that I want to be friends with you?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me. Was it not you, four nights ago, that said you didn't want to be family?”

“Yes, Siri. I said family, not friends.” He shifted, and his knee rubbed against mine, and I sucked in a sharp breath, wishing our knees were bare. “Friends can become something more. Family can’t. Friends could go out, get drunk and be reckless, and kiss at the back of the car. Family can’t.” He shifted again, his knee on mine again, and I swear, he was doing it on purpose. “Friends can be more, Siri. Accidents can happen in a friendship that might end up with both of us naked, and tangled together under the same sheet.”

I swallowed the excess saliva in my mouth, trying to say something, but words had abandoned me. Me, who always had something nearby to throw back, had nothing to say. I was speechless. I was stunned, and I loved the picture he was painting.

“So tell me, Siri,” he said, his voice dropping, his hand now on the bench, his pinkie almost touching mine, “why don’t you have any friends?”

I swallowed again before I looked away from him and back at my book, even though the words now looked like they were written in French. I just needed something to keep my eyes away from him, before this dangerous thing in my chest became something else.

Why wouldn't he give it up? Huh, why? But I found myself answering anyway. 

“In case you haven't noticed, I'm being treated like an outcast here. A weirdo, if you will.”