Dare You to Move

Riley and I have fought a lot throughout our friendship. We wouldn't be human if we didn't which is why I'm not ashamed to say it. We always fought over stupid things like boys or something totally not worth fighting over, but we would always make up.

I could usually count on that.

And it would always happen like this; she would creep up into my room since my parents were always away and just lay there for a second of silence. I always knew it was her without having to ask. It was just that sort of best friend vibe. I don't know why she would always come to me; it was never the other way around. I always thought it was because I was more stubborn, less willing to admit I was wrong. Anyway, she would always say it was her fault, I would insist it was mine and we would fight over that for about two minutes and then make up.

It was different this time.

Because that wasn't enough to fix what was going on between us. As I lay in bed before she came, I realized that this wasn't really about some boy. It would be easy to say that it was but in all truth, it was about us.

It was about our friendship, our deteriorating friendship.

When she crawled into bed beside me, she didn't speak for a moment or two and I didn't look over to see what she was doing. She stared into space while I did the same and I knew we were both thinking about the exact same thing.

Were we going to be able to work things out?

"You weren't in school today," she said, her voice staying steady.

"I wasn't up to it…" I replied honestly.

I could feel her nod. "Lucas was worried." She paused. "I was worried."

I shrugged. "I didn't know if you cared." I wasn't being malicious, or I wasn't trying to be anyway. I just honestly wasn't sure that she cared at this point, it was hard to tell.

It was silent for a while after that. I was sure she didn't know how to respond.

But then finally she broke the silence, still refusing to look at me. "I called to check up on you, but then I realized that you probably didn't want to talk to me after how much of a bitch I've been being…" she let out a sigh "…I'm such a bitch," she whispered and I looked over. The light from the window was shining on her face and it became clear immediately that her eyes were red from crying. "I don't know how to fix this one."

"It was never about the boys," I said and she nodded.

I turned back over to stare at the ceiling as I waited for her to speak. "You know how cynical I am, Haley…" she started "…the glass is never half full, always half empty." She cleared her throat as it faded. "I sat in bed after you left that night we fought and I started freaking out. You had lied to me, and I had lied to you. It was like the one thing that I had depended on to be flawless, wasn't so flawless after all."

"You thought our friendship was flawless?" I scoffed.

She laughed sadly. "It's always been all or nothing with me, you know that. So when I realized it wasn't as perfect as I thought…I wanted to drop it all together."

"That's ridiculous, Riley…" I started, turning my head to face her, but she cut me off.

"I know…" she assured me "…I know that now." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I just thought it would be easier that way. It doesn't even sound logical when I say it out loud but it was what I was feeling. Because it hurt more than anything, Haley…to know that something as stupid as a boy, or boys in this case, could come in between us; to know that you couldn't trust me with something we had always told each other we would share. You lied to me." She turned her head so that our eyes could meet. "And I lied about the same."

I furrowed my brow. "You mean…"

She nodded. "I slept with Jesse…" she paused "…a couple of months ago."

I turned back up to look at the ceiling. "That actually makes sense," I marveled. "You didn't want to be alone in it…" I laughed softly, cursing incoherently at myself for not understanding.

She nodded, but didn't answer. I figured she wanted to change the subject. "When you told me about Nathan, I felt like he meant more to you than I did. And I really, really, really hate being second best." She laughed. "It's selfish, I know that. But I wanted you all to myself. And after you told me, I started noticing the way he looks at you…the way you look at him. I just felt kind of," she sighed, "left out."

I shook my head and turned back so that she could see the truth in my eyes. "Nathan will never be more important to me than you, Riley. I promise. I don't even know if Nathan and I will ever be anything, you and I…we're best friends." I cracked a smile. "Nathan can't say that he knocked out some kid in the second grade because they tried to steal my gum."

She laughed but tears came out of her eyes and I saw her wipe them away after averting her eyes from me. "I'm so sorry, Haley. I don't want to lose you."

I smiled. "You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you say that." I closed my eyes. "And just for the record, I'm sorry too. I don't want to have to lie to each other ever again."

She nodded. "So, you don't hate me for being totally unreasonable?"

I laughed. "You weren't being unreasonable…" I assured her "…it makes total and complete sense. I just wish you had explained it all to me sooner."

She stuck out her pinky. "Best friends?"

I latched on. "Without question."

There was a comfortable silence between us after that until I heard her stifle a sob. "You were right by the way," she said, her voice in a whisper. "About Jesse."

I looked over at her abruptly. "I didn't want to be."

She laughed lightly. "I really thought he was different, Haley. But they're all the same."

"Tell me about it," I scoffed. "And we both got our hearts broken by the biggest asses of them all."

She didn't respond for a second and I knew that she was thinking about what I didn't want to say out loud. "Nathan's not an ass…not really anyway."

I nodded. "I know," I whispered. "But it's so much easier to pretend that he is."

She stuck out her hand and I accepted graciously. "We're going to get through this, Haley. You know how I know?"

"How?" I asked, not looking at her, still off in my own little world.

"Because we have each other."

"Is this the part where you break into song?" I teased and she playfully slapped me which landed us both in giggle fits. It felt like old times, only I knew that it wasn't. Riley and I still had a long way to go, but at least now, we were on the same page.

Riley slept over and Lucas picked us up in the morning for school. He furrowed his brow as he watched us leave the house together but I gave him a sort of nod and he smiled, understanding. "Can we stop at my house really quickly?" Riley asked Lucas when she got in the back seat. "Just let me change."

Lucas nodded and put the car in reverse, backing out of my driveway. He opened his mouth to speak and I knew what he was going to ask so I gave him a warning look and he shut up immediately. I didn't want to talk about Riley and my so-called reconciliation because I didn't want to jinx it and right now, we had a long ways to go.

But we were okay.

When Riley skipped out of the car, Lucas turned to look at me and I simply shrugged. "She showed up last night and we talked some things through. We're okay." I smiled softly and then turned to look out the window. "We're okay."

"But are you okay?" He asked and I didn't bother to look at him.

"I don't know," I sighed, closing my eyes and leaning back against the headrest. "God, I should be! Shouldn't I? My best friend doesn't hate me anymore…this huge void in my life should be filled but…"

"…it's not," he finished for me.

I nodded. "I don't know what to do, Lucas. I don't know what to do."

He reached his hand over and ruffled my hair. "I think you do know what to do."

I looked over to him and frowned. "What?"

"You know what you want, Haley." He told me. "You want Nathan. So stop running from him just because you're afraid he'll hurt you. Grow up. Life's a bitch and people are going to disappoint you, but you move on. Like you and Riley did…"

I bit my lip and eyed him suspiciously. "Terra's rubbing off on you, isn't she?"

"Is it that obvious?" He laughed.

And I laughed with him until the door to the house swung open and out stepped the problem in my life. He didn't notice us at first while we stared at him. He was wearing loose fitted jeans and some kind of polo shirt that I had once ripped off of him in the heat of the moment. He looked like he did when I first met him, irritated, bored…careless.

And I wondered if I had imagined it all.

But then he looked over at us, first at me, then at Lucas, and then back at me. His whole persona changed. His eyes lit up and he looked lost in the way he did when we visited his mom and sister. I wanted to reach out to him, help him, but I couldn't move.

All I could do was stare.

Lucas started talking but I wasn't listening, I totally tuned him out as I stared on at Nathan and he stared back at me. After a minute or so, Riley opened the front door to her house and started walking towards us. She nodded at Nathan in acknowledgment and he nodded back, before taking one last look at me and disappearing into his car.

I watched him drive away.

"Sorry," Riley mumbled as she got into the car and sent me an apologetic look in the side view mirror. "He told me last night he was leaving earlier so I didn't think we would run into him."

I tried to force a smile. "Don't worry about it. Nathan and I are in the past."

It was silent but I chose to ignore it as I raised my eyebrows to make Lucas move the car. He shrugged and drove off, leaving me to stare out the window in silence. Nathan's words had been ringing in my head since he had said them. "You are a coward." He was right. God was he right. I was a coward, and there was nothing I could do to change it. Because no matter how much I wanted to just forget all my fears and live in the moment, I couldn't.

I wasn't that strong.

The next time I saw Nathan was in our last period class. I had gotten there early to meet with my teacher since I had missed yesterday, but she wasn't there. Instead, there was Nathan…sitting in the last row. I looked around awkwardly, hoping that maybe he wouldn't look up and I could sneak out and come back but I had no such luck. "Hey," I said and then took the seat farthest away from him.

He didn't respond but I saw him watching me move to my seat out of the corner of my eye. My back was to him when he first spoke. "I don't know what I can do anymore," he told me, "so I give up."

I didn't turn around, just looked down at the desk and bit my lip to keep it from trembling.

"The ball is in your court, Haley. Because I'm done trying."

I closed my eyes and sighed. I didn't know how to respond; I couldn't respond so I just sat there like a fool and waited until the rest of my classmates stumbled into class, along with the teacher. Reed was the second person to walk in and when he noticed the distance between Nathan and I he shook his head and found a seat somewhere in between. Reed and I would probably never be friends but at this point, it didn't even matter to me. I was a bitch about the whole situation, yes, but I couldn't dwell on it. He would move on.

What was so great about me anyway?

I made my way out into the parking lot where Terra promised she'd meet me and take me home. When she saw me, she smiled. I had only briefly run into her during lunch, not enough time to inform her of the latest in my suddenly drama filled life. "So Riley and Jesse broke up…" she said and I nodded "…and I saw you two talking in the halls when I went to my locker. Does this mean everything has suddenly fallen into place?"

I sighed. "I wouldn't go so far as everything, but some things…yes."

She laughed. "Well who wants their life to be perfect anyway? That's too goddamn boring for my taste."

I shrugged. "I guess you're right. Hey, is it cool if Riley rides with us? She didn't have a ride so I told her you might be willing."

She nodded. "Of course." She bit her lip and I could tell she was trying to figure out if she wanted to say what she was thinking. She stopped walking suddenly and turned to face me. "So just like that, you and Riley are okay?"

"It doesn't make sense, does it?" I laughed. "But you know what; at this point…it doesn't even matter because I just wanted my friend back. We've been through so much, Terra. She knows me backwards and forwards and neither of us are going to give up just because things aren't back to normal immediately, you know?"

"You see Haley…I told you. You just needed to decide if she was worth it or not." She smiled. "And she was."

I pulled her into a hug. "Thank you."

She laughed, pulling away from me and looking me in the eye. "For what?"

"For putting up with my melodramatic venting."

She laughed again. "Well, you're worth it."

"Hey." Both of us turned around to find Riley a few feet away. Things sure had changed. And for that I was glad. Because even though I loved Riley, I needed to prove to myself that I could make it without her. I needed to have more than one person I could count on and for so many years; all I could depend on was Riley. Now I had Terra, Lucas more so than ever and though I didn't have Nathan anymore…I felt like I had learned a lot from him.

"Hey," I replied. "Terra said she would give you a ride."

Riley looked over at Terra and smiled shyly before looking back over to me. She looked like she felt out of place, so I swung my arm around both girls and we walked in perfect unison to Terra's car.

Terra dropped Riley and I off at my house. I could tell something was on Riley's mind and I was sure that it had something to do with Terra but when she spoke, I was surprised to hear the words that came out of her mouth. "You need to talk to him, Haley."

I turned back around from the refrigerator where I had been pulling out a bottle of water and stared at her blankly. "Who?" I asked, though I was pretty sure I knew damn well who she was talking about.

"Nathan. You need to talk to him."

"Riley, come on, there is nothing to talk about with him." I said, though even I didn't believe what I was saying. "He just complicates things…" I tried to explain "…it's easier this way. No one gets hurt." I said, taking a seat across from her at the kitchen counter.

"So that's what this is about…you don't want to get hurt?" She tried to understand. "Haley, I understand that getting hurt sucks…believe me, but even now, I wouldn't take back my relationship with Jesse. You grow from it and yea, it hurts like hell but you move on."

"Why go through the agony of it all, though?" I reasoned. "Why not just avoid it all together?"

"Because if you don't take risks, you'll miss out on all the great things in life." She said, looking me dead in the eye. "Maybe Nathan will hurt you, Haley. But you don't know that for sure…you won't know until you find out for yourself."

I averted my eyes. "I know." And I think I did know that all along.

I tried to sit there and study after Riley left, but I couldn't, so I turned on the television. Of course, I couldn't focus on that either so I ended up turning it off half an hour later and going back to studying. The truth was, I couldn't focus on anything no matter how hard I tried. I kept hearing Nathan telling me that I was a coward, and Riley telling me that I needed to take a risk.

I tapped my pencil on my notebook as I stared out into space.

Something needs to be done.

My dad's Benz was in the garage, covered up so that it wouldn't collect dust. The keys fell out when I opened the visor. It was only to be used for emergencies but I felt that even though this wouldn't be considered an emergency in his eyes, it was for me.

We never saw eye to eye anyway.

When I pulled up to the house, there were only a couple of lights on and Mrs. Scott's car wasn't in the driveway so I assumed she was at whomever her boyfriend was this week's house. This meant there were only two people who would open the door. One being Riley and the other being Nathan. I know that Riley wanted me to talk to Nathan but I felt like it would be awkward if she was the one to open the door so I silently prayed it would be Nathan.

It was.

When he opened the door, I forgot what I was going to say which was probably a good thing since what I was going to say made absolutely no sense. He just stared at me blankly, probably trying to figure out what the hell I was doing there. "Are you looking for Riley? Because she just left a couple of minutes ago to pick up dinner."

I looked around awkwardly and then looked down at my hands, picking at one nail with another. "Actually I came to see you," I whispered before looking up to meet his eyes. "I was hoping we could talk."

"Is there anything left to say?" He asked tiredly. "You don't want to get hurt, you think I'm going to hurt you…end of story. I've heard it a million times…but I stand by what I said before, Haley. You're a coward."

"Will you just let me talk?" I protested. "I came to tell you that you're right…I'm tired of playing it safe. I'm tired of analyzing every little thing and looking before I leap." I sighed, averting my eyes. "I don't want to be a coward. I don't want to live my life knowing that I could've done something but I didn't because I was afraid." I looked up at him. "You and I may not work; who knows maybe tomorrow you'll dump me for some blonde but…"

"Do you really think that low of me, Haley?" He asked, which was not the reaction I was expecting. "One of the things I liked about you was that you seemed to expect more from me but here you are assuming that I'm going to cheat on you the second I get the chance."

"Nathan…"

"No, Haley. I don't think you get it. Do you remember who I was before all this? I slept with girls that I probably wouldn't even recognize on the street, girls whose names I never even bothered to catch. But then you came along, and you looked at me the way you did…and I dropped it all for you. I was willing to change." He closed his eyes briefly. "But it didn't seem to matter to you, because suddenly I wasn't worth it."

"Aren't you listening to me, Nathan?" I cried. "I'm telling you that you are worth it, damn it! That's why I'm here, aren't I?"

"Then you need to give me some goddamn credit. I'm not going to hurt you, okay? Not on purpose. Don't go into this thinking you're going to get hurt because then you're going to have your guard up for God knows how long. You need to trust me."

I closed my eyes. "I want to, Nathan…I really do. I'm just…I don't know, it's hard. After everything we've been through…"

"So then why are you here?" He snapped. "If you can't trust me, we have nothing. Are you just here to prove to me that you're not a coward? Because if you're just here to prove me wrong, walk away right now." He said, shaking his head. "I don't want to be used like you did Reed."

"That's totally unfair!" I screamed. "Now you're just trying to make me mad, aren't you? Is that what you're doing? Pushing me away? Because you're damn good at it, Nathan!"

"I just don't want you to be here for the wrong reasons."

I closed my eyes and bit my lip, a nervous habit. "I'm here…" I took a deep breath and lowered my voice "…I'm here because I get this feeling when I'm around you." I opened my eyes to look at him. "I feel lost, confused…and scared as hell but at the same time, I feel like when you look at me, you see me." I let out a soft laugh. "Like, really see me. I've never met someone so complicated, Nathan. But through all your complications, I can't seem to stop myself from feeling the way I do." I stuck my hands in my pocket and looked down, sort of embarrassed at my revelation. "Riley and I are friends again," I told him. "And that was supposed to make everything in my life fall back into place…but I realized something was missing. I'm just…I'm scared."

"Haley, look at me," he said and when I looked up, he gave me a sort of half smile. "I'm scared too. Hell, I'm probably more scared than you are…" he stepped closer and placed my hands in his "…but you can't let fear run your life. You just can't."

I closed my eyes and let a tear drop. "I know."

I felt his thumb trace the tear along my skin and I opened my eyes. "I think I love you," he said.

I laughed. "I thought that no one loves anyone, not really anyway."

He knew I was mocking him.

"I think I'm out of my angry at the world faze," he smiled, sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

I giggled, sucking on my bottom lip before looking up to meet his eyes for another intense stare. "How can you love me? We haven't even gone out on a date."

He took a step back and put out his finger to indicate that he needed a few seconds before walking backwards into the hallway. He soon returned with a daisy and stuck his hand out to offer it to me.

I eyed him suspiciously.

"What are you doing Saturday?" He asked.

I broke out into a goofy grin and averted my eyes as I figured my face was turning red. "I think I'm busy," I teased.

"You're right…you're going to be out on a date with me."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure of yourself?"

He laughed but it was different from the laugh I usually heard come from him. It was genuine and it was without a trace of any kind of sarcasm. It caused me to smile even more. The laughing stopped and he just continued to stare until he finally cleared his throat. "Would it be improper to kiss you before the first date even happens?"

"Is anything you do proper anyway?" I teased.

He smiled, took two steps forward and cupped my cheeks in his hands. The warmth of his hands on my cold cheeks startled me, but the second my eyes locked with his blue one's, nothing else mattered.

The only thing I wanted to do was touch my lips to his.

So that's what I did.

Maybe we wouldn't last forever; maybe he would dump me after our first date. At this point, it didn't really matter. All that mattered was that in the moment, I couldn't care less.

The End