“Where are we going?” I asked, back to my innocent self.

“Does it matter?” She said laughing and picking up her pace. I was curious, she seemed to be in a good mood for some reason…but I didn’t know why. She dragged me into the car she rarely used, which meant she needed to take me somewhere fast.

Before I knew it, we were a few miles away at Centennial-Olympic Park. Ashley got out and ordered me to follow quickly. I did and soon enough, we were in front a huge square screen that illuminated light like nobody’s business. Photo’s scrolled across it in a slideshow. Apparently there was some photo contest going on that weekend and these were the competing pictures. Out of nowhere, I saw a picture Aiden took of Ashley and me when we were sixteen. Everybody awed over it and said how cute it was.

“How you did…Why did you…What…” I couldn’t complete a thought.

“Well, officially today we’ve been friends for three years straight.” She said smiling at me.

“You kept track of the day we met?” I asked quizzically. “Could you be anymore gay?” I laughed and so did she. “No for real, this was incredibly sweet. I can’t even describe how sweet it is.” We walked until we found a bench to sit on. I looked down at all the names on the bricks in the ground.

“Well, that day was incredibly life changing for me.”

I looked up at her with furrowed brows. “How so?”

She stared me in the eye like she never had before. “Well, I would have never made it through the last three years without you. You were always the one person I could count on and…” She began inching her way towards me with every word. Her eyes darted between my lips and my eyes, not sure which to pay more attention to. I kept thinking…this is it. This is when Ashley admits that she like me. By then though, I was so used to the rejection that I couldn’t accept her like that, not right then at least.

I turned my cheek. “Ash,” She pulled further away and looked at me intensely. “You’re with Aiden.” She sighed and lowered her head. “Let’s just pretend this never happened alright?” She nodded her head in disappointed agreement.