Best Friends With Benefits

Chapter Thirty Four

At first I just stared at Gale and he stared back, neither of us saying a word since he said his three. Gale had just declared his love for m but this was not how it was supposed to happen. When someone told you they loved you it was supposed to be a joyous moment and then you kiss and run off into the sunset together. In my case there was no sunset, only rainy clouds ahead to blacken my thought process. I knew he wanted me to say it back, to tell him I loved him back but I had only known him a few weeks, I was in shock that he had developed feelings so fast. Frozen in time I was happy not to be the first to break the never-ending silence, so he did.

"Please don't tell me I told you that and now you're going to leave?" I smiled at him but there were no words to explain how I felt, I guess empty would be a good start. If I was honest I was tempted to crawl into bed for the rest of my life but knowing that wasn't an option I sucked it up and spoke.

"I'm not leaving, but I thought we said this wasn't going to work" I gestured between us and guilt spread inside me, trying to convince Gale to move on was hard and I knew a part of me was still hanging on.

"We barely tried" He was right, I had called it off before we agreed it was on, it was my fault I was in the situation.

Suddenly it all became too much, talking to Gale and thinking of what Aiden would say and talking to Aiden and thinking about Gale. I had to explain my emotional confusion to someone and since I was with Gale, he would do perfectly well.

"Come to mine after school, I want to talk, properly" Gale nodded signalling that he understood my distress. Aiden didn't need to know that Gale was meeting me later because it may only cause an argument that I didn't have the patience for. We parted ways and I felt relieved that later on I would have a clearer mind on this love triangle then what I did now.

I met Aiden in the usual spot at lunch and we spoke briefly, he seemed a little hot-headed and after the previous day I didn't want to fuel his flame so I kept my distance, I left early to spend some time with Alex and also filled her in on the whole Gale situation. She was uneasy on the idea of Aiden creeping back into the picture and told me to clear things with Gale and if I did my heart would tell me what was right. She seemed to speculate that I was nervous about starting a relationship with Gale and was taking things slow therefore went to Aiden for attention and he was familiar ground which I fell quickly back into place with. She was suggesting that Aiden was my safety blanket that I felt comfortable in and Gale was the outsider trying to pull me from it. She was convinced Gale was what I needed.

Alex made it sound that I was unhappy with Aiden but I wasn't, just because he made a mistake didn't mean he was a bad person and let us not forget that he was my best friend which he was for a reason. After the conversation died, Alex finally began to elaborate slightly on her and Charlie.

"He approached me" I wasn't surprised, always leave it to Charlie to pounce on the pretty ones.

"Okay, then what?" I urged, she seemed uncomfortable but I nodded signalling I was fine with the subject.

"We got talking and then he kissed me"

"Jeez, talk about escalating quickly, from talking to kissing!" I laughed and she loosened up, I couldn't believe it took her this long to tell me, not that I wanted to know about my brothers love life because the thought sickened me but if he made Alex happy then I was interested.

"Then we just started seeing each other when he came from college" It must have been difficult for them to only see each other on the days my brother came back from college, the college wasn't too far but it was still a journey they generally didn't make. Charlie had obviously been home much more because of Alex but Daniel had decided to stay on the college campus longer, luckily for me.