Bucket List | Jack Duff

t e n

— JACK —

I think I'm in love with my best friend.

This may all seem to be very sudden and abrupt and maybe like I haven't given it a lot of thought but I think I've known this for quite a while now and was putting it off, hoping that maybe it wasn't necessarily true.

After our little camping trip, Ari got a fever and because her lungs and immune system are weaker than that of an average healthy human, a fever can be pretty deadly to her health so we all had to be very careful with how we handled the situation at hand. I suggested we take the safest route out which would cordon off any risks, by taking her to the hospital and the other lads agreed - she flat out refused our proposal every single time we asked and got very distressed over it so we had to stop pushing and just let her stay home. 

She was slipping in and out of consciousness over a three day period as we cocooned her on the couch and took it in turns to sit with her hourly and be with her, just in case something happened or she took a drastic turn. Her parents were on a business trip just a few hours away which they were trying to get out of and had put us in charge till then. And that's when I knew.

She was so vulnerable when she got to stages like this in her health and despite her pushing away all of our futile attempts to help and assist her, she knew she needed our help just as much as we needed hers. I'd only ever stayed with her this long when she was in hospital those few times and I'd only ever seen her this weak twice in my lifetime and it was scary.

But she was still so beautiful and somewhat precious and I couldn't pull myself away from the way that was making me feel. She was beautiful not only on the inside but on the outside too, perfect even as I liked to call her and she had such a big control over me which I couldn't work out. She was like my safety barrier per say, a human protector, who I felt I could put the entirety of my trust into and I loved that because you need somebody like that in your life and she was my safety. You know you've found the one when they make you feel like that.

I'd been showing it a little in the past few weeks in an attempt to let her notice, but I don't think it was clicking on for her however much I wanted it. My feelings seemed to be showing off in bright, flashing colours now, especially after all that time we spent together as I took care of her and did everything in my human power to make sure her health didn't deteriorate too much. I loved to show much I cared about her, even if if in them few days she couldn't really sense it.

It was the way I found that I felt when she was lying there, asleep in my arms that I couldn't just ignore. Despite how sick and tired she looked, and how much of a dire situation we found ourselves to be in, it was the feeling of my heart pumping out of my chest, the feeling of every muscle loosening and feeling at peace with the world whenever I was with her - it was quite crazy to think this was how I was currently feeling about my best friend but it was the way things were and if I'm honest, I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

But these feelings are what's making it so hard for me to imagine her not being here in just under a years time. It's the knowing aspect of it, rather than it being that she isn't gong to be here -  I know that I'm going to have to live without her, I know that I'm never going to see her again. I feel so uneasy every time it comes up in a conversation or even just when I'm reminded of it because it is the most horrible feeling I've ever had to experience and I don't know how to react or what to think about the whole situation other than just grieve.

But yeah, I think I'm in love with my best friend.

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— ARIA —

Okay, so I think I might be in love with my best friend. 

Such a sudden and abrupt thought but all very true in a sense and there's no denying it. I'm finding that I can't really form the words as to how he makes me feel and there's no way that I can just push this feeling out because that won't be possible - it's super glued to me.

After our little camping trip, I got really, really ill with a high fever and it frightened me because I hadn't felt that ill and weak since the day I got rushed into hospital with Jack and almost died. I was terrified for myself and terrified for the other boys because I didn't want them to see anything bad happen to me while my parents weren't around to help them. They did offer to take me to the hospital but I didn't want to because if anything was going to happen to me I wanted it to happen at home, not in a hospital.

But it was the way he was with me which made the feelings become more apparent - at first I thought it was an act of pity, the fact that he felt bad that I was going through this alone and wanted to be there for me because he felt like he had to but now I know that he genuinely cares about me and he makes my heart flutter so much, I can't describe it.

I've been trying my best to hide the feelings that I have for him over the past few weeks because it's strange to think that this is how I feel about my best friend now and I don't want him getting too attached to me and then I leave him, but it's hard when all I want to do is just be around him. Being around him makes me feel safe and secure, I can put my complete trust in him and not worry about it. He really does make me the happiest girl in the world.

Which is making it harder for me to imagine leaving him.

I know it's not for another few months but it's still a struggle to think about and no matter how much I convince myself that it'll be okay, I'm still leaving him. There are the questions of like; what if he gets too attached and me leaving him breaks him, what if me leaving gets him down so much that he stays unhappy forever and it ruins more than just his reputation in the band? I don't want to be the cause for all of that and it'll hurt to ever know that I was the reason for his sadness and the reason for not only his career going downhill.

I love him so much though, and it makes it so hard. Like I genuinely do. I've never felt this way about somebody before and it's quite foreign to me but I like the feeling because I'm not the person I was a year ago and it's because of him and the feeling of knowing that is amazing.

But yeah, I think I'm in love with my best friend.