Band On The Run

hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have (but I have it)

My lips were rolled tensely into my mouth. I couldn't help it! The uneasiness was clear in every jerky flick of my hand as I sent the records forwards in the bin to see the next one. I couldn't even make my brain function well enough to take note of the albums that were flashing before my eyes. Yet I was too anxious to look up.

The thought forced a glimmer of my innate stubbornness to straighten my spine, and I forced myself to let my eyes shift sneakily to the side. And there was Seth. He looked as casual as ever, hair shooting in every which direction it pleased, grey hoodie cozy beneath his leather jacket. Apparently he was completely immune to the awkwardness that was close to paralyzing me. There was the slightest of lines between his brows, the one he got when he was concentrating, and he was flicking through albums as well. Although he did it with much more care than me, and I suspected he was actually paying attention to each title.

That anxiousness from before took a back seat as my chin raised in order to watch him as he lifted up a vinyl. He flipped it around to see the track listing on the back while his other hand saved his place in the bin. A smile whispered around the corners of my mouth when I recognized the cover of Whitney.

Caught up in my enjoyment of seeing Seth clearly about to put a Whitney Houston album in his to buy pile – as he should, the album killed – I wasn't even aware when he first looked up. At least not until a few seconds too later. And I blinked blankly when I found him looking right back at me, his eyebrows raised as he eyed me patiently. The embarrassment must have shown over my face, because something too close to a smirk for my liking rose on Seth's face.

Instantly I felt my cheeks begin to burn. So I quickly turned away, attempting to hide my mortification by burying my red cheeks in the record bin.

This was all my fault, I scolded myself silently. I was the one who had suggested that we be friends again. And while I was maintaining to everyone – including Nick – that it was a much better option than whatever we'd been doing since he'd come home, I just didn't know how to behave. I'd admittedly been more than a little drunk at the time of the suggestion, but even I knew I'd meant it more as 'let's try not to be assholes to one another and maybe even be friendly'. Seth had taken it much more seriously.

Apparently to him, being friends meant doing things together. And yes, I understood the premise. But we'd been doing things together since he'd come back, maybe grudgingly on my part and definitely argumentative on his. Still, doing things all the same. Things that were planned like the media outings or unplanned like walking down to grab coffee during practice. Somehow the moment it turned into him asking if I wanted to check out a record store after rehearsals there was a lot more pressure, and I magically turned into the most uncomfortable friend of all time.

I just didn't understand how to be his friend yet, and I was beginning to worry that maybe I never would.

I knew what I'd said that night had been true, we had been friends. Just like I knew he'd been honest when he'd said I had probably been his best friend. Yet it was still different. Back then we'd always been on the precipice of something more, no matter how I tried to convince myself otherwise. Afterwards we'd still been friends, but friends that were desperately in love and dying to fuck all the time.

We'd never been just friends.

Just friends with Seth was a foreign concept to me, and I needed more time to figure out where my balance was in it.

The way I got so lost in my own thoughts was not helping me today, if it ever had before, because I didn't even notice Seth move. Not until he was reaching over my shoulder. I jolted away despite myself.