Message In A Bottle

Feb 1

Fred was currently going through a Crisis.

In which he was panicking and questioning everything he knew.

It all began last Sunday with the horrible rumours on the Forging Friendship app. In which somebody accused him of crushing on Alex, which was "disproven of" because Fred had been acting "normal" around Alex and Alex had a boyfriend anyway.

The second accusation was that Danielle had a crush on him. Or rather, she still had a crush on him after their embarrassing middle school ages. And thus people began to ship them again, which was actually pretty annoying.

Danielle had met up with Fred when they came back to school denying the rumours. "I-I don't like you that way, okay?" she mumbled, her face a furious red. "Those rumours are false and totally wrong."

"Got it," Fred said even as he stared at Danielle, thinking she sounded awfully embarrassed.

In all honesty, Fred had not consciously thought of Danielle in a romantic context. It was partially due to her old cringey crush on him in middle school, and Fred had believed she would be so embarrassed that she would never like him again. And it was for her benefit that he didn't bring that up, so he pretended she never had that dumb crush on him. And thus he viewed her as "off-limits." No dragging mortifying tween stuff back up. Got it.

But then—

Now that the rumours were shoved in his face, Fred began to connect the dots. Or at least, he tried connecting them. Danielle had always seemed nervous around him, which he chalked up to her being nervous around everybody, and the fact that Fred was considered "popular" could be intimidating to her. Yet, as time went on, Fred realized Danielle was never this nervous around other people, the Bailey twins and Eugene included. And she continued to be flustered around him when they had been friends for a few months now, and while Danielle was less familiar with Conner, she never was flustered around Conner.

If it was anyone else, Fred would be suspicious, but since Danielle was the one with the horrifically embarrassing past (or not) crush, Fred thought he was doing her a favour by never wondering if she liked him, because she probably didn't.

Fred, despite him pining for Alex, was aware that other people liked him. Most of them never did anything, but sometimes Fred could spot their feelings between the lines. Despite Fred's reputation as a flirt, he only flirted with people who weren't taking it seriously. Fred thought flirting was fun, as a way to get to know someone and to rile them up while cackling at the cheesiness. But once someone displayed signs of being genuinely invested, Fred would politely make his departure and then keep his distance. He'd been like that back when Alex was single, in a way foolishly thinking he was "saving" his most genuine self for her. None of the others mattered. Only Alex did.

But then, obviously, Alex found Arthur, and Fred naturally had to throw all of that out of the window. Gradually, he learned to get over his feelings. It pained his heart, but it was necessary. Thinking about Alex hurt and filled him with guilt, remorse, and nostalgia, so he trained himself to stop thinking about her. He couldn't waste all of his youth pining after one single person even if she was undoubtedly important to him. It wouldn't be fair to her, and it wouldn't be fair to him.

Still, Fred didn't consciously seek out romance post-Arthur. Fred did not consider himself as a mature person, but the fact that he didn't do romances because he was afraid of treating them like a rebound was actually a show of maturity. Fred did not think of himself as "ready" enough for a true romance, something real and big beyond casual flirting and infatuation.