Mabel

17

My eyes are starting to go out of focus.

I'm currently sitting on my desk, swinging my legs in some unannounced rhythm and watching Kai edit more photos on his laptop, chilling on my bed like there's nothing weird about it.

He even questioned why I wasn't sitting with him.

Unbelievable. Me. Sitting on a bed. With Kai.

It's just a ridiculous idea, really.

I've gotta tell him. My brain will seriously not shut up about it, like, at all.

It's reasonably past midterms, now—enough for Kai to stop boycotting all work in some sort of quote-unquote stress break and finally start doing things again and yet, I still haven't confessed like I told a certain small, nagging blonde-haired best friend that I totally would.

And now even my brain's mad at me.

"Okay, Mabel," Kai says all of a sudden, snapping down the lid of his laptop with a semi-loud click that makes me jump far too noticeably. I almost fall off the desk.

"What's the deal?"

I regain my balance as suavely as I can (a grand total of not very) and play it cool because what else can I do, it's a vague question and I'm nothing if not cool right now.

"Huh?"

Okay, in conclusion, I am indeed nothing.

"You've been staring at me for like... twenty minutes. What's up?"

I'm fairly certain it was longer than that, but if Kai wants to say twenty minutes, then twenty minutes it was.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" He asks, peering at me in such a way that I feel kind of like I'm sitting with a nasty school teacher who's interrogating me about my homework as opposed to my definitive crush.

Or Luca after I broke something and didn't tell him. It's very much the same thing.

Regardless, I feel a trickle of sweat slip down my temple.

"Nope, not a thing."

She lies, my brain says—supposedly having suddenly channelled its inner Voldemort in the first Harry Potter.

Great series, I can't exactly blame it. 

Kai pushes his computer off to the side of him, patting the free space on my bed without any hint of a verbal request and, somehow, I follow him–albeit very unwillingly.

I shuffle onto the mattress, a good few feet away lest I cling to Kai and never let go until someone pries me off, crying 'please date me,' and Kai doesn't comment on it, but does give me a very skeptical glance.

"You've been acting weird all night," he says, and I want to deny this but I don't think I can.

It's all Talia's fault, really.

Now, yes, I say that about a lot of things–but this really was, because right before Kai arrived for their Study Sesh, Talia told me that if I didn't confess to him tonight, she would horribly mutilate my Elmo onesie and I would never get to be 'that girl dressed up as Elmo' at a party and it got me all nervous. 

It's a cold, cruel world when your best friend is a heartless asshole.

"Or, you know," Kai continues with an apparent moment of re-evaluation, "Weirder than usual."

"Hey!"

Now the love of my life (a bit of an over-exaggeration) is also heartless? Who do I have left?

"Seriously, what's up?" He asks, genuinely sounding concerned when he looks at me, and okay, maybe the love of my life isn't a heartless asshole but Talia Alpin most definitely is and I need to do this. For the sake of Elmo.

"Nothing!"

Elmo cannot believe he's being betrayed right now.

"Mabel, I know you," Kai says very seriously. "You never stay quiet for longer than two minutes–and even then I'm a little wary–and yet you've barely said a word all night. Is it about your project?"

Damn it, my project is him.

"Not... exactly."

Real subtle.

"Then what?"

I press my lips together enough to make my mouth feel all tingly as I think this over.

Pros of telling him? Well, we could end up dating which would, of course, be wonderful.

Or it'll save me the embarrassment of accidentally saying it in front of, like, the entire university and then getting rejected.

Also, I'm less likely to shrivel up from keeping it inside for so long.

Cons?

Crippling, life-ruining, traumatic rejection.

It's a tough call.

"I..." I start, Kai perks up at this and the little spark of light in his eyes right now is enough to give me fake confidence as I fool myself into thinking that this could be hope that I'll confess.

Don't think any more about it! Just say it Mabel come on.

"When a male angler fish, typically small, hungry and weak compared to the females of their kind, finds a mate using his keen sense of smell he has from the time of birth, he attaches his mouth to her digestive system and his lips and internal organs start to melt until it releases an enzyme as he becomes nothing more than a part of her, relying on her to supply him with nutrients that he receives as they share the same circulatory system..." I take a deep, gasping breath.

"And their hearts beat as one."

Kai stares at me, mouth hanging just a little bit open and I give a countdown in my head, not sure where I'm counting to because the man looks out of action, to be entirely honest.

"What the fuck?" He finally asks.

Shit. Abort. Abort.

"Just a... little fish fact that's been making me think."

Totally wasn't supposed to be a metaphor for how I feel like I've become dependent on you for my own happiness or anything haha that'd be ridiculous.

Kai laughs, shaking his head with an amusingly disbelieving glimmer to it and says, "I've never met someone so into fish..."

I'm into you, actually.

It's not until after he leaves that I realize that saying that probably could've saved it.

I'm sorry, Elmo.