Wheelchair Accessible

Part Twelve

As time passed, things began to change between Shawna and I.

We grew closer, but it started to feel different. There was more... something in the air. A sense of anticipation. Like someone was always waiting for the other person to do something, but neither of us knew what.

                Or maybe I was overthinking the situation because I was starting to realize that I might be developing feelings towards her. Like... the romantic kind.

                There would be these moments where I would catch myself watching her too long to be casual. I don't know if she ever noticed, but never said anything. Or at times I would almost reach out and grab onto her hand, or poke her cheeks, or do something to touch her because my hands couldn't figure out what else to do in that moment. But I never let myself.

               Instead I stayed quiet, letting the feelings grow but keeping them contained. Triple locked. I refused to release them. If I somehow ruined the best friendship I'd ever had with these stupid feelings, I don't think I could ever forgive myself.

And I know that one person could never be the solution to all your problems. I didn't expect that from Shawna and I would never put that kind of responsibility and burden on her little shoulders.

But right now, her and Ryder were all I had. As cheesy at the saying was, they were the lights in my otherwise dark life. My little brother and my best friend.

I wasn't going to mess it up.

Not again.

***

                "We're doing something tonight," Shawna informed me the second I answered the phone.

              "Sorry, I think you have the wrong number," I fell back on my bed, staring up at the blank ceiling.

"Ha ha, good one, Marky Boy. Very creative. Very funny. Can't you hear how hard I'm laughing?"

"Okay, okay," I sighed, rolling my eyes. "I'm sorry."

"You should be. There's a lot of people out there who put a lot of hard work into their comedic genius. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but my hilariousness doesn't just appear. I mean, yeah, okay, most of it is natural. I'd take a guess and say that I am ninety percent funny all on my own, but the other ten percent is thanks to the hustle I put in to coming up with good jokes. It's actually insulting that people like you--"

"So you're bored?"

"Oh my goodness," she groaned. "So freaking bored. Help me."

I chuckled. She was so dramatic, but anything sounded more appealing than the math homework I was putting off, so I was in. "Alright, what are we doing?"

"I don't know. I actually didn't have anything planned. I just wanted to hang out with you."

I smiled, "Oh."

"Yeah."

  Sitting up, I glanced around the room for some spark of inspiration. We could just do what we usually did, watch a movie or go shoot hoops somewhere, but I wanted to change it up. Surprise her.

After a moment, my eyes landed on the digital camera sitting on my desk that I had been using to help my mom upload some photos from their 'couples retreat' onto her facebook page for her friends to see.

It was almost like a bandaid. Like having a couple pictures of the two of them smiling at each other would cover everything else up; but really, all you had to do was peel back the thin layer to find the festering wound beneath it.