Every writer knows there is nothing more frightening than a blank page. Anything is possible with a blank page, and that’s the worst part. There is no telling if the words that you put down will amount to anything; if what you are trying to write will blossom to its full potential. Beginnings are always the hardest, that much is entirely true. In the beginning, you are trying to coax out the words from where they are hiding, but they are shy and sometimes the right words don’t make it to the surface. Suddenly, all you have is a pile of nice words on a page, but they aren’t the right words and everything seems to fall apart right there in front of you.
If I had my way, those good words would be enough; a story could come together from those words that maybe weren’t the best but still managed to be pretty wonderful. I mean, isn’t life full of situations like that. Where the things and people you thought you wanted with you turn  out to be impossible, but you still have some pretty good things and people there and you want nothing more than to take those people and keep them with you for the rest of your life because they were the ones who were there for you. But then the wheel of life turns again, and you realize that you couldn’t even keep those people and now you’re wondering what happened to the life you were trying to build around them. Suddenly you’re at page zero again, that blank page is staring you in the face and your fingers are trembling because you’ve already tried so many times but nothing seems to work. You’ve tried endless combinations and variations, but the end product is never what you wanted and sometimes you just want to throw it all away and give up.
You know you can’t though, some defiant part of you is not going to let you surrender your dreams and hopes and desires just because you’ve failed a few times. Now you start looking to people like J. K Rowling, who had nine publishers turn her down, and try to draw strength from their stories. Stories where the first time it didn’t work, where things didn’t go the way they were planned, but it worked in the end, the people reached their goal and were better for it.
“What you working on?”
The sound of a male voice startles me from the world that I was in, the one where the girl can do anything she wants and always gets the guy at the end. And maybe I want to be that girl, and that’s why I’m writing the story I am, but everyone has to keep up their hope some way. Jumping a bit before whirling around to where the voice came from, I catch sight of the one person I’ve been hoping to avoid. There, standing right in front of me, is Lucas, with his ever present smile and sparkling blue eyes. Honestly, it shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did to realize that he was the guy that I was really crushing on. I had wasted so much time thinking that Marcus was the one I was really in love with.
But, I mean, who can blame me? With his perfect chiseled features, bright white smile, dreamy brown eyes, and six-pack, Marcus is pretty much every girl’s version of a dream guy. The thing about dream guys though is that, one day, you have to wake up. Unfortunately for me, I happened to wake up as soon as the person who was actually perfect for me got a girlfriend. Talk about bad timing.
Shaking myself out of my musings though, I quickly snapped my notebook shut and replied, “Nothing.”
I should have known I wasn’t going to get away with that though when it came to Lucas. As one of the few people who knew I wanted to be a writer, he was very aware of the fact that nothing I wrote was ever just ‘nothing’. Lucas had been reading the things I wrote for years now, and he had seen time and time again how I used my writing to express the emotions I would never actually say out loud. For a lot of the time, those stories were a girl pining after a guy who suddenly realized that she was the one for him and then they rode off into the sunset to their happily ever after. Looking back on those, I was actually kind of embarrassed that I had ever written anything like that. I kind of took pathetic to a whole new level back then, and even now I had just moved to a different level on that same pathetic scale.
Raising one eyebrow at me, Lucas walked over to the seat next to me at the library table and sat down, our knees so close that I almost thought I could feel some of his warmth. Ugh, I am in so over my head right now. Before I could even think of anything to distract him with, Lucas gently pried my notebook out of my hands and opened it up to the page that I had been working on. His eyes quickly scanned what I had just been writing and I wished that I could just disappear so I wouldn’t have to face his knowing and sympathetic look. Lucas had always been uncannily good at figuring out what was really on my mind when I wrote something.
Sometimes, I did write just to write, because there was a world that I could see in my mind that I wanted to be able to show to the world I actually lived in. Other times, writing was a form of therapy for me and I wove everything that I was feeling into the words that I put onto the page. I released them out into the world so they would stop eating me up from the inside out and I could breathe without feeling their weight in my stomach. Every time my writing turned therapeutic, Lucas could tell, and whenever I let him read what I had written, he always figured out what the root of the emotion on the page was. Now, he was reading something that I had written with him in mind, and all the emotions that he was causing in me were intertwined with the words sitting there in black and white on the page. Even though nothing was written plain out, and names weren’t mentioned, I had no doubt that Lucas would see right through all of that to the personal side of myself that I had hidden there.
Some crazy part of me was screaming at me to rip the pages out of his hands and just run while I had the chance; make some excuse that would, no doubt, only make things worse and just deal with the consequences later. I knew I could never go through with that though. Maybe I was a coward, or maybe some part of me was hoping that he would figure it out and realize that I was the girl for him. All I know is that something was pinning me to the chair and I was hopeless to do anything but let Lucas keep reading. In no time he finished, and slowly, he put my notebook, still open to the page that I had been writing, on the table. Once the book was fully on the desk, Lucas turned his gaze towards me, and I could feel my heartbeat speed up and my armpits start to sweat. I was terrified of what I might find in his eyes when he looked at me.
But as our gazes locked, I couldn’t decipher the look that had replaced the usual sparkle in his eyes. There seemed to be equal parts confusion and disbelief, mixed with what I could have sworn was hope, but none of the pity that I had expected. Slowly, like he was almost afraid to break the silence that was growing between us, Lucas asked, “Who’s this about?”
At those words I felt the last of my silly hope fade out of existence and my heart break a bit in my chest. Too far gone now to try and hide anything, I let out a little disparaging laugh before saying, “Do you really not know? Come on Lucas, I know you know me better than that. You’ve never had any trouble before when it comes to reading between the lines. But if you want me to say it, fine, I will. I wrote that about you, Lucas, because I finally realized that I am hopelessly and completely in love with you. But it doesn’t even matter because you’re going out with Rebecca now and she makes you happy, so who am I to complain just because I realized too late that you were the one I really wanted.”
At some part during my little speech, I had gotten up from my chair and started pacing in front of the stacks of books that separated us from the rest of the library. My confession was flooding my system with the same restless energy that usually drove me to pick up a pencil and write until my hand ached from the strain. Since that wasn’t an option though, I was left to pace back and forth in an effort to control all the bubbling emotions that were tumbling through my veins. Suddenly, Lucas was right there in front of me, and he put his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to stop moving. The warmth of his hands felt so right and despite my better judgment, I could feel some of the tension drain out of my body.
I wasn’t stupid enough to look him in the eyes though, and I kept my gaze focused on the floor, my Toms and his sneakers filling my vision. I knew I couldn’t handle seeing the pity that every rational part of my brain told me resided in his eyes. Finally, Lucas said the last thing that I expected to come out of him mouth at that moment. “What on earth made you think that I was dating Rebecca?”
My head automatically snapped up in surprise, and I sputtered out, “I … I saw you two on the green yesterday. I was going to talk to you, cause stupid me finally realized how I felt, but you two were laughing and having such a good time. Besides … I know you have a thing for fiery red heads, and she fill both those requirements.”
At that Lucas let out a burst of laughter, and simultaneously, my heart leapt at the sweet sound and a flash of irritation shot through my system because he was choosing now to make fun of me. Deciding to ignore my traitorous heart at the moment and focus on my annoyance, I bit out, “What’s so funny?”
Lucas quickly stopped laughing at my words, and he replied with a small, sweet smile, “I’m sorry, I just find it hilarious that you assumed that Rebecca and I were dating because we were sitting together on the green.”
My irritation was starting to grow even stronger with each word that he spoke. How dare he make fun of me right now! I mean, I know it’s pretty pathetic to be crushing on your best friend while he’s dating someone else, but that doesn’t give him the right to be a total p**** about it. Lucas seemed to sense my growing agitation though, because he quickly hurried to say, “Maggie, the only reason that I was on the green with Rebecca was because I was helping her with math and we couldn’t find an open classroom, so that was the next best option. She’s been falling behind and Mr. Pine asked me to tutor her so she can get her grade back up.”
I could feel my mouth drop open as Lucas continued to talk, but I couldn’t seem to stop my reaction. What he was saying made perfect sense, and yet I hadn’t even considered that as a possibility before. My mind had completely jumped to the automatic conclusion that because I saw them together once that meant they were a couple. I hadn’t even paused to consider the fact that Lucas would have told me if he had gotten a girlfriend, I mean those are they type of things friends usually tell each other right away. I had to be sure though, before I got my hopes up, so I asked, “Are you serious right now? You were just helping her with her math?”
At my questions, Lucas’ smile widened to its normal length, and he assured me, “Yes, I was just helping Rebecca with her math. There is nothing going on between the two of us.”
Just as I was about to try and say something to recover a bit of my dignity after that major misconception on my part, Lucas kept going, saying, “And you know, on the topic of fiery red heads, there is one that I’ve liked for a while now. The thing is she’s always liked someone else so I never thought I had a shot. Coincidently, she just happened to admit that she actually liked me and not the total meathead that she’s been crushing on for years now. So, I was thinking that if she was willing to give us a shot, I would love to have her come over to my house on Friday. I figure, we could binge watch Netflix and order pizza. That’s assuming, of course, that she says yes.”
With each word that came out of Lucas’ mouth, I could feel my smile growing wider and wider. Of course, he wasn’t going to come right out and ask me on a date, there wasn’t any fun in that. This, though, was perfect, a proposal that was so cheeky that I’d only tolerate it coming from him. Deciding to not drag out his game any further, I wrapped my arms around his neck, fiddling a bit with the hair there, before saying, “She would love to take you up on that offer.”
With that, the mischievous glint that had been shinning in Lucas’ eye was replaced with a happy one, and his smile grew so wide that it seemed like it would split his face. Then he placed a kiss on my forehead and I couldn’t help but let out a little giggle as my heart filled up completely with happiness. So even though it might be a total cliché for two best friends to fall in love with each other, if this was what it felt like to be a cliché, I was more than happy to be one for the rest of my life.