All Along | ✓

Chapter Twenty-Nine

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"We're drawn to each other beyond our understanding; there was a natural pull neither of us wanted to question."

- n. m. sanchez

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Oli's POV

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When my phone lights up with a notification on the coffee table in front of me, I glance away from the TV to see what it says. It's a notification from Instagram, which surprises me. I get too many messages on there, so I have almost all notifications turned off. Except for one account that I always keep up to date with.

I lean forward and open the notification to see what has been posted. There's no way of stopping the smile that lifts my lips. Luna has posted a mirror selfie of her and Alana doing face masks on her close friends story. I pause the screen, spending way too long staring at my best friend. The longer I look at her, the more my heart races. My faces heats up, my stomach drops and I feel butterflies in my chest. All that just looking at a photo of her. I take a second to think about what these feelings mean.

I quickly come to the conclusion that I'm either having a heart attack, or I'm developing feelings for my best friend.

I would almost rather experience the former, because the thought of ruining my relationship with the person who means the world to me actually makes me feel sick to my stomach. Sitting alone on my couch, I find myself wondering how I got into this position.

My thoughts take me back, trying to pinpoint the moment I started feeling this way. All throughout high school, I thought of her as my adorable kid best friend. When I came back for the first time, she was thirteen and I thought she was growing up too fast, but I never thought of her in any way other than platonic. Obviously, because that would be creepy as fúck.

During her senior year, when I'd just started in the NBA, I realised she was getting really pretty. So pretty, I thought I'd be fighting teenage boys away from her left and right. But she didn't need me for that. She knew what she wanted and it wasn't them - she wanted to be a lawyer and she didn't want distractions, so that's what she did. I still didn't feel anything but platonic love for her, despite thinking that she was growing up gorgeous.

The first NBA game she came to was a couple months before she turned nineteen. I remember meeting with her before the game and hugging the shít out of her because I just couldn't help myself. That night was probably the first time I even considered that I could feeling something more than platonic for her. But it wasn't because of her, it was because of something Rick said.

Here I was thinkin' you were datin' this gorgeous little thing, but she's just your best friend.

He thought that she and I were together. Maybe it was the long hug or the kiss on the cheek before the game, but somehow that was the conclusion he had drawn. I quickly corrected him, but that thought played on my mind a lot after that. The thought that Luna and I could be something more. Never in my life had I even considered that as a possibility, then suddenly it was.

It was a year later that I started dating Georgia. I liked her, she was a nice girl. I didn't see her that often at the start of our relationship because of my busy schedule, but she liked to talk about her life and I liked to listen. I thought she was sweet until she started coming between Luna and me.

Only a little while later, Luna started dating Jackson. That's when I realised that she would eventually prioritise other men over me. I was just her best friend, after all. I knew that would happen eventually, but it didn't really hit me until it finally happened. Of course, you could say I was doing the same with Georgia, but I never meant for that to happen. To me, Luna was always top priority. In my mind and heart, at least. But maybe not my actions, and I will always be regretful of that.