Never be the same (Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier)

Chapter 38

"But friends don't hold hands, and friends don't make these kinds of plans."











I would lie if I said that I never thought about it before, but actually doing it was a whole other thing. It's not supposed to actually happen anywhere else besides my head.

He's my best friend, for goodness sake, you don't just go around kissing your best friends.

I had locked myself in my room ever since we got home due to being way too embarrassed to look anyone in the eyes, to look at him. I bet they were all talking about it downstairs at the moment. I still can't believe I did it. But then again what was I supposed to do? I didn't know what else to do and it helped, didn't it?

"Gosh, it's so embarrassing," I thought out loud as I buried my face in my hands.

However I was not able to pity myself for long since my head snapped up as soon as I heard somebody trying to open the door, only to find it locked. Then there's a knock on the door. Then silence. I hold my breath.

"Adriana?" I hear a girl's voice call out and I let out the breath I was holding, "Adriana, are you up?"

I think about pretending to not hear for a moment, but something in me feels the need to get up and answer the door. So I do. I unlock the door and open it to find Cindy standing there with a broad smile on her face.

"I brought snacks," she tells me excitedly as she holds up a bag.

I didn't know what to say so I just stepped out of the way and motioned her to come in.

"I thought we could watch a movie and have a little girls night," she says as she slumps down on my bed, but then she quickly pushes herself up on her elbows and looks at me, "if that's alright with you of course?"

I look at her worried face and just shake my head playfully, "You're already here, aren't you?" I say before adding, "besides, you said you brought snacks."

She laughs at me and I can see the relief that washes over her face as she rolls herself off my bed to get to the TV. She starts scanning through the different DVDs that are there, actually interesting me enough to join her since I haven't even looked at them myself.

She smiles as I join her. She seems to smile a lot. At least when we're together, but then again I think that's just the kind of person she is, constantly smiling. I sometimes wonder if I would be like her if, you know, stuff hadn't happened to me.

"Do you wanna watch anything in particular?" I decide to make small talk after not really finding anything that looks too familiar or too interesting.

"Not really," she mumbles, reading the various titles before turning her gaze towards me, "Do you?"

"Uh," I struggle to find the words, "I don't really know many movies. You know since-" I don't finish the sentence but instead point towards my head.

"Oh right, sorry." she looks down, embarrassed. I quickly wave it off, it was not my intention to make her feel embarrassed for what she said

"Don't be. Not your fault." I give her a fake laugh which comes out as more of an awkward cough to be honest, "Just show me something you like." I suggest.

"Oh, uh, alright sure," her face lights up like a christmas tree and I get caught off guard of how quickly her mood changed.

We end up watching some silly romantic movie, which later turned into more of a background noise for the conversations we were having. The conversations were fun though and I probably should blame that on the booze which she had sneakily snuck into my room a little after we started the movie. As an excuse she told me that the movie would be too cliche or depressing without it, since apparently she was stuck in a friend zone with the person she liked.