It’s gotten to the point where you’re both crashing at each other’s apartments every other weekend, either because it gets too late to catch a bus home or she wants to go to the beach in the morning. 

You sleep on the couch, six feet away from her hellhound of a mutt, and as hard as it is to sleep with Bec’s unnerving, disjointed breathing on the other side of the living room, you manage. She lets you sleep with one of her many plush blankets -this weekend it’s the one with the Squiddles logo emblazoned on the front- and somehow the smell of her favorite laundry detergent keeps your dreams from being too far off and eerie. 

You always wake up first, and while you whip up bacon and eggs, you think that mundane thought for the first time. I love Jade Harley. It puts a weird taste in your mouth, like copper pennies on the floorboard of a car, but you set down the spatula and stare at the griddle for a few minutes. 

You love Jade Harley. 

You love the way she always messes up her nails when she tries to paint them herself. You love the way she collects mismatched socks in her bottom drawer. You love the texts you get on Tuesdays, the ones that read: ‘Tuesday? No problem.’ 

You love the way she always holds your hands when she leads you into the water at the beach, like she’s afraid you’re going to get caught by a riptide and drown. You love how no matter how many times you tell her you’ve been in the ocean before, she insists you are ‘young in these matters, Mr. Strider.’ 

You love Jade Harley. 

You decide to make pancakes along with the eggs and bacon. 

The next time you think it, you’re splitting ways at the university, her to her biochem finals and you to your film exams. 

She stops at the place where both of you usually part ways, looking thoughtful.  “We’re friends, right?” She asks, and you raise a brow. 

‘Depends,’ you think, ‘Does me being in love with you change any aspect of friendship?’ But you don’t say that. Instead your traitorous mouth wraps around: “Yeah, ‘course.” 

Jade looks you in the eye determinedly. “Good. As your friend, I’m ordering you to do well on those exams!” 

“I’ll do my best, just try not to fall asleep during yours.” You retort, and Jade makes a face at you. 

“Low blow.” She says seriously, before breaking into humoured laughter, and you shoot her a smile before both of you are off. 

The exam feels longer with her laughter in your ears. 

You almost say it one night. She’s asleep on your shoulder, bored by your choice in filmography, and you can’t convince yourself that you care for the French film either. You’d thought about kissing her earlier. 

She was drinking peppermint tea (the only kind you remember to keep in your pantry, it’s her favorite, after all) from a nondescript white coffee mug from your kitchen, and you had wanted to kiss her so badly it turned your heart over several times. 

You didn’t though. 

Now she was asleep on you, and you know you’re going to have to rouse her to convince her to take refuge on your sofa. You hesitate though, counting the heartbeats between her breaths. You linger there, in the spaces between the intake and outtake, and you want to say it, just once. 

You don’t though. 

You chicken out one last time before you cave. 

She’s studying, lips pressed against the eraser of her mechanical pencil, and you know she’s concentrating on something. Aspects of thermodynamics, it seems, from a quick look at her page. Your own textbook on historical and Renaissance art is simple in comparison, so you watch her instead. It’s almost hard, trying to sneak glances at her over her kitchen table, and as Raphael and Brunelleschi slip from your head, you think it again. 

You could do it now too. She’s so focused on her studies that you could lean across the table, kiss her square on the mouth, and be out the door in mere moments, barely enough time for her to realize it happened. 

Instead, you tap your own pencil against the edge of your binder in an impatient rhythm and meander back to the color print illustrations on the page. Your head starts to hurt by the fifteenth artist you’re forced to cover, although you can’t tell if it’s the Italian names throwing you for a loop or that you’re a coward. 

You don’t hesitate the next time, to your horror. Jade is wet-haired and content from the beach, and the day’s hot sun has long set behind the horizon, leaving the cool evening to dry both of you off. You decide to catch something to eat from one of the shitty boardwalk restaurants before heading back to your car, and that’s when it happens. 

The car was supposed to yield, both of you had the right of way anyway, but they come ripping through like it’s the apocalypse. The loud revving of an engine and the flash of a headlight is the only thing that gives you time to react, and you yank Jade out of the way as the shitty Mustang speeds past. They don’t even slow or stop, but you can’t find it in yourself to be anything but terrified. 

The boardwalk is still completely empty, it’s far from tourist season anyway, but even if there were onlookers, you doubt you would do anything different. Your fingers are iron clad on her wrist, as you loosen your grip you reach down to run your fingers over the forming bruise. “Sorry- shit. Sorry.” 

“No- it’s alright, really. You got me out of the way, it’s fine-” Jade says, but you don’t give her room to continue before you’re wrapping your arms around her, reveling in the fact she’s alive. 

“You almost died- that douchebag didn’t even stop—“ You take a shaky breath. Her hair smells like her green apple shampoo and sea salt, and you press your nose into it. “Shit- I love you.” 

Jade tenses before relaxing, her hand coming up to rest between your shoulderblades. She grabs a little at your damp shirt and puts her other hand on your cheek as she pulls away from your grip, and you feel your heart stutter its way into your throat. “I love you too, Dave.”