Lydia

Lydia has always been the light of your life. In high school, she was cheer captain, head of the community service club you were both members of, and an all-around great young adult who looked after the people around her. Even at a young age, she was beauty and grace personified. You went to prom as friends - that’s right, friends. As in, despite all the late nights talking on the phone, sharing your woes, your struggles, you’re dreams of better days, you were always her rock, her bestie, and she’d be damned if she was going to ruin such a good friendship by crossing any romantic lines. Even if you did slip up and lock lips that one time during a joint-family trip the summer after graduation. It didn’t get any easier during college when you teamed up on marketing projects on an internship together. The drive and ambition she put into even something as simple as creating a storyboard for a fast food commercial, made it seem like to her, she was saving the world. That’s when the bittersweet realization came: you’re in love with her, and you fear you might never escape feeling that way. As graduates, you’ve worked together at the firm for a few years now. You’ve each dated other people here and there with marginal success at times, yet always ending up back together, binge-watching movies in your pjs and pretending not to be hurt. Pretending not to notice how good it felt to be together when no one else seemed to understand. One night as the credits roll following some romcom that seemed to be mocking your dynamic with Lydia, she turns to you, the blue light of the tv flickering in her eyes. With a soft exhalation, she rests her hand on your knee and hesitates just a moment before finally speaking up. “I have a confession.”