"Uh, Kevin, I don't know how to say this…. Uh… Look, remember the other day that I went roller blading with Georgia? Well, you see, she kinda tripped over, it was an accident… Anyway, I sort of held her, you know… Oh man!" Zac turned bright red.
"Yeah, you held her, so what?"
"Kevin, stop that, you're making it even more difficult! Well, it's just that when I was holding her… Uh, why is it so hard to explain? Uh, well, I felt kinda strange…"
"Zac, you 'felt strange'? I don't get you…"
"Are you doing this on purpose? I just felt like… you know… and then we were both embarrassed… and then I started wondering…"
"Zac, did you kiss her?" a dazed Kevin asked.
"No I didn't! That's exactly what I mean! I didn't kiss her but I felt like doing so…"
"Oh my God! You have a crush on her!" Kevin gasped, goggling his eyes.
"Well, I don't know… I mean, at first I thought that it was a one moment thing, but when we were at the backyard, because of that blackout, and she took Tay's shirt… I was jealous! I mean, if there's nothing there, why was I jealous?"
Kevin pondered for a while. Oh God, this is bad! This is sooo bad! What am I supposed to do now? Talk him out of the whole thing? Discourage him? No, I can't do that, he's my best friend; he needs me to support him! "Do you know how she feels about this?"
Zac shook his head. "I have no clue."
Great! Maybe she doesn't have a thing for him too! But then, why was she so happy when she came home that day? "Have you thought about talking to her?"
"Are you serious?!? That'd be so stupid! Hey, don't tell her anything, ok?"
Kevin rolled his eyes. "Of course I won't!" As if, then she would come here and ask him to marry her! "But then how can you be sure about her feelings?"
"In fact, I was thinking about asking Tiffany to find out for me…"
"No way! Girls talk… Georgia will find out…"
"And we don't want this to happen, do we?"
"Of course we don't! At least we don't want her to find out because of some gossip… What you have to do is to show her yourself!"
"And how do I do that?"
"I don't know…", Kevin shrugged. "Just do things that will make her understand how you feel."
"And what if she doesn't feel for me the way I do?" Zac's face fell.
"We'll think about that later… Now go find her and do as I said!"
"Thanks Kev, you're a real friend" said Zac and left in search of the cause of his heartache…
Kevin sighed. "Real friend…"
I was at Hanson's backyard, pulling off the grass from where I was sitting, under Zac's tree house, thinking of him. At first, after the little incident at the square a few days ago, I was literally over the moon about the whole thing. But later on, I realized that just because Zac held me when I fell didn't mean that he was in love with me! He obviously saw me as his buddy; there was no chance that he would be interested in me as I was in him.
Tay found me in a really bad state; I was on the verge of crying.
"Hey there, what's wrong?" he sat beside me.
The last person I need now is his brother! "Nothing's wrong, I'm fine" I said quickly as I wiped my wet eyes.
"What do you mean 'nothing's wrong'? You're crying! Did you have a fight with Zac? What did that stupid brother of mine do? I'll kill him!"
As soon as he mentioned Zac's name, the tears I was trying so desperately to hold back started running uncontrollably down my cheeks. "Oh Tay…"
He put his arms around me. "Shhh… don't worry, I'm here now… You can talk to me… Is it about…Zac?" he asked gingerly.
"Yes…" I muttered from inside his shirt.
"What's wrong?"
I pulled away, did my best to stop crying and attempted to explain the situation. "He… Well I… It's just that…" I looked at Taylor; he was waiting patiently. "Taylor, I think I love him…"
Tay leaned forward and wiped the tears from my face. He smiled. "That's wonderful, you don't need to cry about that…"
"Yes I do 'cause he doesn't feel the same way."
"How can you say that, you haven't, like, asked him. Have you?"
I shook my head. "But I know he doesn't, he sees me as his pal. We're friends Tay…" I started crying again.
"Don't worry. I'll be here for you." he whispered softly. Once again he hugged me and kissed me on the forehead. "Everything's gonna be alright. I promise."
Zac took a deep breath and headed to the backyard. "OK, this is it. Just go over there and talk to her. Tell her that she looks nic…" Zac just stood there dumbfounded. There was Georgia, in Taylor's arms… both of them caught up in the tender embrace…