Fatima: She better not replace me
Zan: You're not getting replaced. Chill

She tucked her phone back under the pillow and closed her eyes to stop tears from forming. For the past few days she’d been re-reading old conversations she used to have with her old friend. The texts had her recollecting all the times she became jealous and gave him a hard time for showing other ladies too much attention. Zan was Fatima’s best guy friend and she always felt at peace when he was around.

Fatima: *image of a new outfit* This is for tonight. You think I'd get hella numbers with this outfit?
Zan: Yeah, I like it a lot. It looks good *heart eye emoji*
Fatima: Thanks Zan! I can always count on you to be honest with me.

Their innocent relationship blossomed so quickly and with that same speed, so did the demise of it. During their friendship and after it ended, she always knew that Zan had so much love for her; a genuine reciprocated feeling. After not speaking for almost 5 years, it took the recent news of Zan’s engagement for Fatima to realize that at a certain point in their friendship, she developed deeper feelings for him. Fatima was madly in love with Zan and could put her hand to her stomach and feel butterflies fluttering so freely while her chest housed her shattered heart. For three straight days she thought of what could’ve been. Her mind constantly racing with images of them together. She’d close her eyes at night and imagine him cuddled up next to her but then would open her eyes to only be exposed to an empty bed and wetness between her legs from raunchy thoughts of him.

Rather than spending her days crying over what she can’t have, she schemed to get Zan back in her life as a close friend again. As great as this sounded in her mind, she knew that the difficulty in being respectful and appropriate would only lead to frustration and sadness.

The truth is, growing close enough to a person requires a certain level of vulnerability. You eventually totter the fine line between loving them and falling IN love with them. Fatima took a calculated risk of being honest with Zan after so many years only to end up with the short end of the stick. Terrified at the possibility of losing him again (indefinitely) she wondered how to suppress her physical and emotional attraction.

There is nothing worse than living your life asking the question, “What If”.

Note: I’m trying something new with my site y’all, so bear with me and my inconsistency with random stories and random rants.