Sanity to my Insanity

Chapter-14

Hello everyone! This is the first time you'll be hearing Arden's thoughts. I hope you enjoy it.
Happy cozy reading, cuties!!

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Arden
Hurt.

It was the first thing I felt. Not because I disapproved of her liking towards me but because I feel like a selfish A-hole for not understanding my bestfriend like she always does me.

Agreed she is shy at times, not quiet a confessor, always need a slight push to convince her of laying her feelings out rather than bottling them inside in a monologue, but today's dare was too on the spot for her.

She likes to be prepared instead of spontaneous, and having to lay out your feelings in front of everyone is like being vulnerable to those curious eyes.

All the attention is converged on her and as a result, she scurried back into her shell when pushed too hard and before anyone could realize what happened, she covered it with a façade of calmness when she was trembling inside and ran away from everyone as soon as it was over.

She rushed out the home when she felt her insides crumbling with anxiety, and with a quiet believable excuse, she was out and about in no time.

No bye.

Not even a glance.

She was trying to avoid my eyes, fearing my expressions.

I was always the one she blabbered to non-stop, and today, her silence is all I received.

I would have loved to hear her confession on her own terms, I may not feel the same towards her, but I appreciate her feelings more than anyone in the world.

I may not love her as a lover, but she means the world to me. She just creeped up in my heart and warmed my insides, and before I knew it, she cosied herself in a big corner of my heart and life with her giggles and smiles.

Seeing that lone tear down her cheeks and her hiding its traces away, struggling to keep herself together and not give her secrets away, the embarrassment, the fear, the anxiety, all over-ruling her trust on me that I’ll never hurt her and never let anything or anyone hurt her was agonizing.

I couldn’t be there for her when she needed me the most, being too shocked with the revelation I knew were true but been trying to find excuses to counter my beliefs and being ignorant towards the possibilities I led it to hurt her.

When she laid her heart out in those beautiful words, I could see her insecurities, pleads, and fears screaming in her chocolaty orbs to just turn the time over and let it be unheard.

The fear of losing your loved ones and having a misunderstanding burst your happy bubble, the thoughts of pushing your fav person away because of the loud silence settling around her.

She is a pro over-thinker, and if I let her be with herself, anticipating the explanations and my reaction to her confession, she might drive herself to the end of sanity.

She can be a bit extra with her thoughts running wild, in the confines of her pillow and bed, she would lay there for hours with no sleep and these helpless theories.

I shook myself out of my reverie and gave them an excuse aligning her excuse of period as we all know how cranky she gets during her period, I told them about having to run to the shop to buy her cramp relieving medicines and other stuff.

They didn’t muse about it much, and after assuring Journey of taking care of her bestfriend, I quickly said my goodbyes to everyone and ran down the few streets to her dorm.

I bought all her favorite stuff to ease her mood and cramps, finally managed to sneak in her dorm at this hour of night without making any noise of the bags in hand.

I found her room faster as the number of times I visited it is quite significantly large and lightly knocked the door to not scare her out of her troubled thoughts with a sudden sound but just break them with a tap.

Never in my life have I thought I would see the day when the all cheery Dylan would look so blank and broken.
She opened the door, and without looking at me, she continued staring at her pink toes in a pained expression, they look freshly stumped courtesies of our clumsy baby here.

I would have chuckled at her and remarked something cockily but now was not the time to aggravate her more, for I was sure she would throw me out of the door.

Looking at her distraught self, face bloated red and eyes puffy, a pink hue on her button nose and a big frown etched on her forehead, she looked miserable.
I won’t say she looked cute just because she is my bestfriend. Honestly, she looked so terrible rn, and I felt guilty for being the reason for her current state.

My lack of movements and the silence around us finally forced her to look up and my jaw clenched involuntarily, seeing her hurting.

She must have thought Journey has come, and I wanted to rebuke her for being so irresponsible and opening the door without checking the visitor but decided to let it slide for now.

She stood frozen, her back stiff and hands around her waist protectively as if holding herself from scattering apart.
“Hey.” I whispered in a hoarse voice, and it took her quadruple of milliseconds to contemplate on pretending like nothing happened or bringing on the real feelings out.

“Hey. What are you doing here?” She tried to maintain her usual demeanor with a lazy fake smile on her lips.

“I brought your fav goodies!” I exclaimed with much forced excitement to cheer her up. If she wants to pretend, then I’ll let her be for now and slowly ease her anxiety before talking to her.

“Thanks Arden.” She said with a forced smile and a small frown marring her head.

She rubbed her clammy hands on her shorts in nervousness, probably deciding on the best excuse to make me leave.

I beat her to it and made my way to her kitchen to unpack her necessities and put them away in their rightful place.

“Denny, you know you could leave it on the stand. I’ll arrange it later. You didn’t have to miss out on the fun there and come to check on me. I'm fine.”

“Seriously Lanny? You are planning on eating all the goodies alone by kicking me out so soon.” I said with a pout just to ease her into normalcy.

And my trick worked as she smiled her toothy grin at my silly antics.

After a fight with a friend or a breakup, an unrequited love confession or just spilling your darkest secret to someone, it all make you crave normalcy to know that your words didn’t change your dynamics with the other person for the worse.

“You know that’s not true. I am just a lil tired. Was about to go to sleep.” She said with a droopy smile.

I shook my head at her terrible lie and continued fidgeting with the chocolate I was holding in silence before throwing it towards her for her to catch.

I walked around the aisle and stood in front of her with a decent distance between us.

“Rule no. 1 of friendship: Friends do not hide things from each other.” I said with a soft tone to let it sink in her.

“Arden, I am seriously not prepared for all this. It…can we talk about it some other time… ‘cause my head his hurting with everything rn.”

“Sure honey. We’ll talk about it whenever you want, but just so you know… I am not letting you push me away anymore… no avoiding me now with your stupid excuses.”

“Arden.” She glared at me in offense, and I matched her glare with the same intensity to get the message through clearly.

This time, I am not leaving it for the time to heal.

“Time will heal us if we allow it to Dylan. If you keep running away from everything, you’ll at some point reach a dead end, and then you’ll have to face it altogether.”

“I know. It’s just… I am sorry…It…” She said in a chocked voice, and I wrapped her in a bear hug to comfort her.

She stilled for a microsecond before burying her face deeper into my chest and holding onto me tighter.

I lifted her up in my arms to carry her to bed as she cried silently in my arms. I caressed her hair while she curled up in a ball in my lap and let the avalanche of fervor drain out of her body.

After she calmed down, I passed a water to her, and she passed me a guilty smile after drinking it.

I squeezed her in a hug before settling her down on the bed to not make it embarrassing for her.

“I am sorry, Dylan.” I whispered and gauged her expression, which turned into an ashen one soon.

“Stop overthinking. I ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.” I scolded her and her face visibly relaxed at my assurance.

“I am sorry because I have been a bit of idiot, trying to avoid talking about feelings because I don’t know how to express myself.”

“It’s good when it is in my head, but I get blank when I have to speak it aloud. I should have been there for you when you were feeling low, but instead, I was so engrossed in healing myself, I didn’t realize you were hurting too.”

“I thought you needed space, and I let you run away from us all, never realizing how lonely you would have felt as you pushed everyone away just so that you don’t have to see me.”

“I… I broke my promise to you… you trusted me, and here I was the one hurting you the most. You always blabbered everything to me yet I couldn’t even make you feel comfortable enough to share your feelings with me, you were bottling it all up inside, suffocating yourself with unsaid emotions all alone when I should have understood you..”

“I should have read you like how well you read me without me having to say it… but like a coward I discarded all the thoughts that made me believe in the possibility of you liking me whenever something happened.”

“Me never having a female bestfriend before shouldn’t have excused my obliviousness… I could feel your feelings but didn’t have the gut to ask you if I was understanding it all accurately for the fear of hurting you, our friendship, losing you as my friend… I was such a jerk.”

She gasped at me with an unexplainable emotion swirling in her eyes when it all changed to a big, confused frown, marring her forehead.

“But… how did you know.. when… like …what…?” She questioned me, still not trying to fathom how I knew about her feelings.

“When a guy likes a girl, everyone knows about it than the girl but when a girl likes a guy, only her best friends and the guy knows about it. I never thought about it before, quite oblivious with this whole likeliness, putting off everything as a bestfriend thing to do.”

“But when I confessed to Pene, she didn’t tell me the name of the girl, but when she said someone likes me more than I like her, your name rushed in my mind. I was petrified for it to be true, but then in the library, when you cried seeing me hurting, you always been there for me, it all made sense.”

“I wanted to talk to you but didn’t know how to approach it. I didn’t want  to scare you away by randomly starting this conversation so I decided to wait for you to tell me on your terms when you are ready. I let you run away from it, thinking you’ll come around and tried to pull back towards it gently, but life happened.”

“Forcefully you had to spill it out like a fake confession when you meant it with all your heart. I really appreciate every word, Dylan. I appreciate you in my life. I don’t ever wanna lose you, honey.”

I whispered the last part in a hoarse voice, clearing my throat off the clogged feeling, I strengthened myself to look in her eyes.

They were moist with unshed tears and a soft smile adorning her lips.

She slid towards me and threw an arm around me for a hug.

“You did good for actually fessing feelings into words for the first time.” She said haughtily, teasing me with a silly smile spread on her face.

“Thank you, Arden. Thank you for not turning away from me, for being there when I really needed someone to hold me, for being the sanity to my insanity.” She let out a soft sigh.

“I am not too smart at handling everything, never had a boy bestfriend, never had these silly encounters and maybe I got myself all confused in it, I don’t know what I fell for you, I am all tangled in these feelings I never felt before… it was scary you know… these unventured feelings making their way in my heart and the constant fear of losing my bestfriend because of this mess…”

“I was in denial for so long when Dawn, Journey, Avalon tried to convince me it was more than friends…being too scared to consider it… but then when I finally confessed about my feelings to Pene and Journey, I felt relieved… thought I would tell you too… but then you confessed to Pene and I thought if you know that I was the girl Pene told you about, you’ll be disgusted by me…”

‘Never..’ I mouthed to her in assurance.

“I know now. It was just…I wanted to end my feelings after knowing… you know… so I thought maybe a little distance would help…but it only made me miserable…lonely… I wanted to run away from it all for peace… but I also missed you.”

She rubbed her arms nervously, laying out your all insecurities, being vulnerable to a person, leaving yourself bared to them , trusting them with tour secrets, it takes a lot of courage to have this emotion intimacy, even with your bestfriend ‘cause there is always a fear of being judged or misunderstood.

“I missed you too, Lanny. Promise me you won’t try pushing me away again, and I'll promise you I won’t let any misunderstanding or judgment crowd around us… it will be just us.. our rules.. We’ll never hide these things and confront each other if we behave odd.”
I asked, questioning whether I said it all or am I missing out something.

“I promise I’ll be the best bestfriend to you and won’t let you be an oblivious idiot again and make you a best bestfriend too.”

She giggled at my glare towards her and ruffled my hair.

And things just went back to normal.
Who was crying here?

Did we really have a heart-to-heart talk, or did I dream it all?

How did we go back to normal so easily? Is it abnormal to be normal so soon?

Are we back to normal or things changed between us?

I liked how things are with Dylan, even though we fight at times, have these heavy talks, yet we just find our own rhythm along the way and be just our silly selves with each other.

There is an ease around her that I never had with anyone before, and this time, I promise to be the best bestfriend for her.

The huge fess up left our bodies in dire need of some energy, and with the period monster making her overwhelmed and moody, we decided to have some ice cream to cool her temperament.

PS: Bestfriends may share their secrets but never their ice cream.



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