Best Friends' Off-Limits Kiss - Chapter 1

Rachel

I've known I was in love with Maya since the night she held my hand through my first patient death.

We were third-year med students, twenty-four years old and convinced we knew everything. Mrs. Chen was eighty-three; pneumonia, routine admission. Except things didn’t turn out that way. I was shadowing the on-call junior doctor that night, doing routine obs when her oxygen saturation plummeted.

I did everything right from start to finish. Textbook perfect. She died anyway.

Maya found me in the supply cupboard at three in the morning, ugly crying into a box of gauze. She didn’t say anything, just sat down on the floor next to me and laced her fingers through mine. We stayed like that for an hour. Her thumb traced circles on my palm the entire time, and I remember thinking, Oh. This is what it feels like.

That was eight years ago.

Now I’m standing in my flat doorway at eleven at night on a Tuesday, watching Maya cry over someone else, and I wonder how I’ve let things go the way I have for eight years. Propping her up after every failed dating attempt while my heart breaks every time.

‘He said I was too intense,’ she says, brushing past me into the living room. ‘Too intense. Can you believe that?’

I absolutely can believe it. Maya is a named storm all on her own—brilliant and passionate and so intense it sometimes hurts to look directly at her. But I don’t say that. Instead, I close the door, lock it and head to the kitchen for the wine.

After enough times, we’ve developed a routine for this.

I pour two generous glasses of the cheap red I keep stashed away because I know she likes it. She kicks off her heels and curls up on my sofa. Her mascara is smudged under her eyes, and my fingers prickle with the urge to wipe it away. I don’t.

‘Here,’ I say, handing her the glass.

She takes it and drinks half in one gulp. ‘Thanks, Rach.’

I sit on the other end of the sofa, maintaining careful distance. It’s not like this is new to me. She’s dated a parade of unavailable men over the course of our friendship while I watched from the sidelines. I’ve dated both men and women, too, though less loudly, thinking maybe it would help me get over this persistent crush. It hadn’t—hasn’t. ‘You want to talk about it?’ I ask, following the usual breakup script.

‘Not really.’ She finishes the wine and sets the glass on my coffee table. ‘I want to forget about it. Tell me about your day. Tell me something good.’

I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for eight years. You keep dating these emotionally unavailable arseholes when you could have me, your best friend.

Of course I don’t say that. If it was as simple as a confession, I would have done it already. Or at least I tell myself that. If I go ahead and say something, will I doom a friendship that means the world to me? I don’t even know if she’s into women, though lately I’m becoming more sure about it. There have been flirty moments between us, growing in frequency. Is it a sign, or am I so desperate for her to love me back I’m making things up where they aren’t?

‘Saved a kid today,’ I say instead. ‘Twelve-year-old got hit by one of these horrendous SUVs taking over the streets. Looked bad when he came in, but we got him stable. He’s going to be okay.’

Maya’s face softens. ‘That is good,’ she says with a sigh.

‘His mum hugged me so hard I think she cracked a rib.’

She laughs, and the sound does what it always does—makes my chest feel too tight and too full at the same time. ‘Occupational hazard of being excellent at your job.’

We smile at each other, and for a second—just a second—I think maybe tonight is the night. Maybe I’ll finally be brave enough to say it. To risk everything we have for the possibility of everything we could be. But the flutter of bravery leaves me as fast as it came, and to distract myself, I reach for the bottle of wine. Maya has the same idea, and our hands collide.

Time stops. For me, at least. I’m not sure I have any such effect on Maya.

Her fingers are warm against mine. We both freeze, wine bottle suspended between us, and I can feel my pulse in my throat. Her eyes meet mine—those dark brown eyes I know better than my own—and I see it. A spark of something. A signal…right?

‘Sorry,’ she says, pulling back. ‘You pour. I’m a mess tonight.’

The moment shatters. I pour her wine with hands that aren’t quite steady. ‘So,’ I say, desperate to fill the silence, ‘do you want to do the post-mortem?’

She gives me a look. ‘You mean the thing where you pretend to analyse my love life whilst secretly judging my terrible taste in men?’

‘I never pretend.’ I take a sip of my own wine. ‘And for the record, I don’t judge your taste in men. I judge the men. There’s a difference.’

‘Okay, Dr Sterling.’ She settles deeper into the sofa, pulling my throw blanket over her legs. ‘Give me the diagnosis.’

I shouldn’t do this. We do this every time and it never changes anything. But I can’t seem to help myself. I might not be brave enough to tell her things outright, but I still want to shake her at her utter inability to see what’s right in front of her.

Me.

‘He was emotionally unavailable,’ I start, pointing out the obvious.

‘They’re all emotionally unavailable,’ she counters.

‘Exactly. That’s the pattern.’

‘Maybe I’m just attracted to unavailable people.’

Maybe you’re attracted to unavailable people because you know I’m in love with you, but it’s easier to date people you know will leave than take your chance with your best friend.

I don’t say that either.

‘You pick people who can’t give you what you need,’ I say instead. ‘You never have to risk asking for it.’

Maya goes very still. Her eyes search my face like she’s trying to read between the lines of what I’m saying. Like she can hear all the words I’m not saying.

‘And what about you?’ she asks. ‘I can’t believe you’re judging me with your mess of dating life.’

My
heart kicks against my ribs. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on. You date these incredibly boring people. Nice men and women. People who are safe on paper and have the personality of magnolia paint.’ She leans forwards. ‘Why do you do that?’

Because they’re not you. Because they can’t hurt me the way losing you would hurt me.

‘I like stability,’ I say.

‘Bullshit.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘That’s bullshit and you know it.’ She sets down her wine glass. ‘You’re the least risk-averse person I know when it comes to medicine. You’ll try any procedure, take on any case, fight for any patient. But in your personal life? You play it so safe you’re practically encased in bubble wrap.’

‘Maybe I just haven’t found the right person.’

‘Or maybe you’re just as scared as I am.’

The air between us feels charged, electric. Like the moment before lightning strikes. Does she mean—?

‘Scared of what?’ I whisper because I need her to say it. If I rely on me inferring this, I might get it wrong. This is too important to get wrong.

Maya opens her mouth. Closes it. I watch her talk herself out of whatever she was about to say, and my heart squeezes. Please say it.

‘Nothing,’ she finally says. ‘Forget it. I’m halfway drunk and emotional and talking nonsense.’

She’s not drunk. We’ve barely finished two glasses. But I let it go because I’m a coward.

‘You can stay here,’ I offer. ‘It’s late.’

‘Thanks.’ She yawns, stretches. ‘You’re the best, you know that?’

‘So you keep telling me.’

We clean up the wine glasses together, moving around my small kitchen in the kind of synchronised dance that comes from years of practice. She knows where everything goes. She has her own toothbrush in my bathroom. Half the clothes in my wardrobe are technically hers.

By the time we’re done, Maya’s yawning for real. I set her up on the sofa with pillows and blankets, even though we both know she could sleep in my bed. We’ve shared a bed a thousand times. But tonight feels different. Dangerous.

‘Night, Rach,’ she mumbles, already half asleep.

‘Night, May.’

I should go to my room. I should leave before I do something stupid like brush the hair off her forehead or kiss her temple or tell her the truth.

But I stand there for a minute, watching her settle into sleep. Her breathing evens out. Her face relaxes. She looks younger like this. Softer. She looks like the girl who held my hand in a supply cupboard and accidentally stole my heart.

I can’t keep doing this, I think.

But I will. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and we’ll have coffee and laugh about last night’s drama and everything will go back to the way it’s always been. Safe. Familiar. Slowly killing me.

I turn off the light and head to bed.

I don’t sleep.