A Girl's Guide to Ending Rape Culture

Chapter 2

A/N: Just a short little update today :)

Lucas never usually went to the club with us. To be fair, if it wasn't for the chance of karaoke, I wouldn't have said I'd go either.

But here I was, in Ani's dorm room, sitting on a stool in front of her mirror while she did my makeup.

I'd always felt like I wasn't that good at makeup, hence why she was doing it for me.

"So, tell me what you think of Lucas," she says, brushing some eyeshadow across my lid.

I cough. "Lucas? You know what I think of him. He's a good friend."

Ani scoffs. "I meant, what you really think of him. Not this, he's a good friend stuff."

"He is a good friend."

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, but you can't say it's just that. There's something between you two."

"There's nothing between us, we're just friends."

"Okayy. Well, I do happen to know some stuff about him."

I sit forward automatically, then sit back, trying not to look too eager. "Stuff like what?"

"Close your eyes." She'd finished with my eyeshadow and was starting to put eyeliner on.

I close them and feel her brush the eyeliner across my lid. "Stuff like what?" I repeat.

"Oh, it doesn't matter. There's nothing between you guys anyways." Even with my eyes closed, I know she's smirking, I can hear it in her voice."

"Come onn, Ani. I still wanna know."

"Fine," she said. I heard he likes someone."

I raise an eyebrow.

"Stop, you're gonna ruin the eyeliner!"

I lower my brow again. "Who does he like?

"It's a girl," she said.

"Okay," I say, getting a bit impatient. "There's tons of girls in the world. Who is it?"

"It's you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"Oh, um-"

"Do you like him back?"

"I...I do, I guess."

Now, it's her turn to raise a brow at me. "You guess?"

"I mean, I know, but-"

"So you can tell him now!" The way she said it, I could already see her mind working: she was imagining our wedding and the dress she would wear as my bridesmaid.

"I'm not gonna tell him!"

"Why not? You know he likes you."

"I can't ruin our friendship like that."

"It wouldn't be ruining the friendship!"

"It kind of would be, Ani. What if it doesn't work out? I don't know if we'd be able to go back to being just friends."

"Isn't it worth a try, though?"

I think about it for a second. "I don't know."