Neighbours. Him and I were neighbours. The daunting but pleasing aspect of hearing those words spoken for the first time was possibly one of the entrancing moments my ears could ever live to hear.
It wasn’t like we hardly talked. Goodness no, our text conversations could fill up an entire room and the hallway next to it. It was simply the case that I happened to be so deep in the friendzone that my best friend and I joked often about how I was the nerd he came to for relationship advice.
To be frank, I wasn’t even the typical nerd. My hair happened to be natural peroxide blonde, my eyes glimmered a stinking green colour and although my nose was slightly out of proportion to my face, it wasn’t my worse asset.
Would it not be great to be his girl. I would be Riley’s girl. Riley Thompson-Smith. Cara Thompson-Smith. Maybe that went too far, but a girl can dream.
I plugged into my ipod, listening to various heartbreak songs, trying to relate to them on a scale to that I wouldn’t feel completely alone in my friendzone.
By the time I had actually found the right song, the phone that resides next to my bedside table starts tinkling the small tune it does when someone is attempting to call me. Often when I hear it, it gives me a sense of popularity I never had, as if someone wants to reach me. With trembling hands, my tender fingers pick up the phone, various thoughts sprinting around my mind in order to think of a possible candidate who would be calling me.
“Cara?” It’s him.
“Riley? Are you okay?’
“I’ve just been dumped.”
How typical. I hate to say it, but it isn’t a regular thing when he calls me up, like a broken record, saying that his heart hurts. He won’t ever get over girls getting over him when in the distance I am waving my hands like a lunatic in attempt to him to notice me.
“By who?”
“Some girl. But Cara, I know it sounds delusional, but I swear no one has ever properly liked me.”
Isn’t he stupid. Isn’t he an utter delusional. The slight utter in my head that tells me I like him shuts my mouth from speaking the words of truth.
“I think someone does.”
“What?”
With every choke that leaves my mouth, I manage to stutter the slightest, smallest words that let myself free.
“Me.”
“Oh Cara.”
“Riley?”
“Hi girlfriend.”