“So, do you want to…” He wasn’t sure what to say. Beka looked equally awkward, dangling her legs over the edge of the bed she was sitting on, staring intently at her feet. She didn’t say anything either, but just swallowed and kept stubbornly looking away from him. “I mean, we don’t have to do anything special now.”
“Will anything really change?” she asked, still without looking at him.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I mean, it doesn’t have to.”
“But if we wanted it to?”
“Well…do we want it to?”
“Do you?”
“I…yes,” he admitted. “But…only if you do.”
“I…I do. But it is weird, isn’t it?” She looked at him now.
“Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, it’s like we’ve been going around waiting for this for all this time and now…we’re here and we’re doubting it.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “We could try…dating?” She tried not to laugh, but a slight snort came out.
“We don’t have a really good history with dating, do we?” He couldn’t help laughing either.
“No, I think you’re right there. Maybe we should skip the stiff dating part and go straight to the watching-videos-in-comfy-clothes-while-slouching-on-a-bunk part?” he suggested. She raised an eyebrow.
“And that’d be different from what we do now in what way?” He thought for a second.
“It’s just would be.”
“But how? What would we do then that we don’t do now?” she stressed.
“I…I don’t think I should answer that!” She broke out in another fit of laughter as she punched him lightly on the arm.
“Right. No, seriously?”
“Seriously!”
“Apart from that. If that’s the only thing that’s going to change, there really isn’t much point, is there?”
“Hey, I’m…”
“Oh, be serious, please Harper?” she pleaded. “Because this sounds more like ‘friends with benefits’ to me, and that’s just…”
“Wrong?” he filled in.
“No,” she objected, “not necessarily. But it’s not really what I’m looking for.”
“What are you looking for then? I mean, I’m not saying I’m looking for…”
“I don’t know,” she replied honestly.
“Oh.” He took a deep breath. “Love?” She looked away quickly.
“Oh come on Beka, I admitted I love you by that cliff, and you admitted it outside the hospital, I don’t see what’s different now.”
“It just is. I’ve had time to think about it.” He took a deep sigh and stood up.
“And you realised you changed your mind,” he said, as calmly as he could. “That’s ok. If you excuse me…”
“No!” She dragged him back down. “I didn’t say that, did I? It’s just…this is what it is, right? If you start a, well, relationship with someone you don’t really know, or have only just met, then it’s easy to fall into that relationship. You know, routines, what it means and all that. We…well we’ve pretty much lived together for a very long time now and…I just don’t see what it is we’re going to change now.”
“Well…we’ll be more than friends,” he offered, realising how stupid that sounded.
“Just that we’re having this conversation is ridiculous!” she said with an exasperated arm-gesture. “I mean, how many people talk like this about starting a relationship. It’s just meant to happen, like that!” She snapped her fingers. “And I want to do this Harper, I really do, I just don’t see how! I just don’t see…”
Before she could react, he’d grabbed her, turned her around and pressed his lips to hers.
