A Good Book (Sunday Morning, #3)

by Jewel E. Ann

You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.—Dr. Seuss

Loving Gabriella Jacobson was easy. Being her best friend? Pure torture.

By middle school, Gabby taught me to braid her hair because it relaxed her. And in return, she listened to me play my saxophone, clarinet, piano, cello, and trombone. She danced, swayed, and snapped her fingers with a huge smile and enthusiasm in her eyes, whereas my parents used to say, “That’s nice, Ben,” without even looking at me.

“If he’s the dream guy you think he is, then he’ll find your inexperience endearing. He’ll want to be your first kiss. And he won’t judge you for how you kiss because all his brain will think is ‘I can’t believe this amazing girl is letting me kiss her.’”

Kissing the girl that I loved beyond reason and five bear claws. What kind of idiot passed that up?

I glanced over my shoulder and took a mental picture of the crime scene, where she unknowingly shot me down with an arrow dipped in the poison of unrequited love.

“My Gabby is stunning—always the most beautiful girl in the room. I don’t know who this Gabby is.”

“No. You deserve better. He had no business taking off your shirt. And you deserve a guy you don’t have to chase. You’re the prize, Gabby. Wait for the guy who pursues you. Don’t

“Yeah. Eve ran cross country. Sarah was into music. What do you enjoy doing?” Planning our wedding. “I love a good book.”

I wanted to tell my best friend that a guy kissed me, and it was everything and a million times more than what I ever imagined a kiss could be. That kiss reached far beyond my lips. I felt it everywhere.

“Gabby, Ben looks at you like you’re the second coming of Christ.”

I write songs about guys who look at girls like he looks at you.”

As long as he looks at you like you’re the only girl in the world. Understood?”

“Yes, Gabby, I bet after kissing the girl he’s loved for approximately eternity, he won’t be in the mood to go to church with you.”

I never knew my happiness was tied so tightly to his, but it was. If he couldn’t be a conductor, I didn’t want to be a psychologist. If he couldn’t listen to music, I never wanted to hear it again. Friends shared good times and bad. I wanted to trade places with him.

Then I let her go. That was our painful destiny. Me letting her go.

Love was the most vulnerable emotion. It exposed the heart. It stole breaths. Made sane people crazy. And in its unrequited form, love was so humbling.

You don’t get to leave this world! Do you understand? If you kill yourself, I will kill myself too!

should have broken up with Susie. In the eighth grade, when Michelle said you liked me as more than a friend, I should have broken up with Susie.” I closed my eyes. “Maybe it would have changed the trajectory of my life. I wouldn’t have had to be your best friend while you fell for other guys. I missed my chance, and I was too scared to ask for a second one. So I stood in Matt’s shadow. I watched you fall for everyone but me. And I told myself that someday, I would be everything you wanted and more.” He laughed. “For every dream you’ve had about Matt Cory, I’ve had a million more about you. And now I’m nothing. Less than nothing. You deserve something.”

Stopping was the smart thing to do. But I was on holiday break and so was my common sense and fear of God.

“You’re better than any dream I’ve ever had. And he was just a dream,” I said. He narrowed his eyes in confusion. “And I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out.” Ben shook his head. “I can’t hear you.” “And I can’t believe you think our friendship is so conditional and … disposable.” I finally wiped my face and sniffled. “So fuck you, Benjamin Ashford, for making me love you. You’re the world’s worst friend. And I will never forgive you for this.” I turned.

“Nobody loves you more than I do. Our friendship has just been various phases of me loving you, from near, from afar, from everywhere. I’ve spent more of my life loving you than doing anything else. I loved you before I knew the feelings I had for you were love. But they were. They are. And they always will be.”

Despite you knocking me up. When you kissed me, my heart exploded. My dreams died because they couldn’t compare to what was real. You are real. We are real.

Only You You’re my first and last. My beginning and my end. My friend and lover.