And we’re all silent again. We’re all sitting in this awkwardness because there’s nothing else to say. What else could we say to make this comfortable? To make the knowing eyes sitting across from me, staring at me, questioning the relationship I’m in, with the very girl beside me, less intense? So, instead, we do what we can. We allow the loudest silence to take over this table, take us over.

It’s after ten minutes of this deafening quiet that Kelly leans over. Leans and whispers into my ear. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” I nod. That’s all I can do because there are no words I have for her. We all release a collective breath as we watch her walk away, easing into a sense of comfort.

Suddenly my heart rate picks up. I feel it drumming in my ears and can count as every beat is amplified. A rush of overwhelming heat takes over my body and briefly I wonder if the temperature was altered. But, the realization dawns on me. It hits me like a ton of bricks, because there’s only one person that can completely overwhelm me in this way. Only one body that causes my senses to go into overdrive. As I lift my gaze and find myself looking into blue eyes that consume my every waking thought, the beautiful blonde hair I long to run my fingers through, and the lips I can always somehow feel against mine, my breath catches in my throat. It halts its travel to my suddenly starving lungs and holds there. She walks directly towards us, no hesitation in her step, just fluid motion, and I wonder if she knows the effect she still has on me.

“Hey guys, sorry I’m late.” She smiles at the table as she pulls up a chair and takes a seat on Kyla’s other side. She even manages to throw a genuine smile my way, which I can’t quite return, because there are hands sliding across my shoulders and a body taking a seat beside me, and lips, lips that aren’t the ones I want, pressing a kiss to my cheek.

She turns to face this intruder, this person that has infiltrated into this circle, because of me, and gives her a smile as well. A smile, yes, but not one that reaches her eyes, because behind that all too pleasant exterior is a hurt and betrayal personified. “Hey Kelly.” It’s said with such fake cheerfulness that I wonder how she can muster it when I, almost always, fail to do so. She perfects these pleasantries when her disdain for this poorly constructed attempt at a copy of her is so overtly obvious to me.