Chloe
Finally, I was free. After 4 years of pain I could finally go out into the world and live my life.

For a few months of vacation, at least, before I eventually started my full time job in August. But for these few summer months, I was more free than I had been since I was a little kid.

Throughout my teens and into my college years I’d always been stressed about one thing or another, a summer class, a summer job, but now, I couldn’t wait for what I had planned.

At the moment, I was packing what was left of my dorm room, organizing it in little boxes. Once I finished, I’d be ready for Irene to get here so we could leave together.

Growing up, Irene and I had been inseparable. Our moms were friends from college, and given that they had moved into houses on the same suburban street, I met Irene before I’d spoken my first word. We went to our first days of elementary, middle, and high school together, and when it came time to apply to college, we had applied to the same colleges.

We’d both had the same favorite choice, a decently prestigious college that had strong programs for both of our majors, and an unbelievably beautiful campus. We’d planned out living together, how we would decorate, the groceries we would buy, who would clean what, and then, I didn’t get in.

We’d both cried, but in the end, I had convinced Irene to go without me.

It had been four years since then, and while we saw each other every Thanksgiving and Christmas when we visited our childhood homes, it wasn’t really the same, and we’d especially grown apart during the past two years, since neither of us had come home for the last two summers.

This summer, however, our moms had planned a vacation for us together as a graduation present: three weeks in a stunning waterfront beach house.

I was equal parts excited and apprehensive. While this would have been my dream month a few years ago, I worried that Irene and I had grown too different in our time apart, and it would be awkward. I also considered the possibility that we would come together like we’d never been apart, hence the excitement. I couldn’t not be excited at the prospect of spending more time with her.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if she was still the same best friend I loved; I had been noticing Irene changing more and more each time I saw her. We only talked on the phone once every few months, only giving each other the kinds of updates you’d give to distant relatives. As such, I didn’t know what was going on in her personal life, if she’d gotten boyfriends or if she’d picked up new hobbies. What I did notice, however, was how different she looked.

When we’d left for college she’d been a tall, feminine young lady. She’d always straightened her long blonde hair, wore makeup and dresses. She had definitely been the more feminine of the two of us, me being more likely to be wearing flour on my face or dirt on my hands than makeup. When I’d last seen her at Christmas before our final semester, however, it was almost like she was a different person.

She wore her hair very short, styled into a pixie cut that barely went to the top of her left ear. She wore androgynous clothing, mostly jeans, flannels and converse, and she wore very little makeup. Lastly, she had one tattoo that I could see, a thorned rose on her left forearm with striking colors. It looked gorgeous, and more than once, I’d found myself wondering if she had more tattoos I couldn’t see.

Overall, she was a bit intimidating, and I’d often wondered about the things she had experienced to go through these changes. I hated feeling like I was missing out on her life, but I knew that’s the way things worked out sometimes. It wasn’t like she’d want to spend the rest of our lives together, as much as I’d wished that was possible.

I sighed. I’d finally boxed up all of the things from my desk, the eternal torture device I’d forced myself into for hours during finals week.

I looked at all my various reference books, all boring, technical textbooks about plant biology and diseases affecting plants. I’d always been interested in plants as a kid, trying to talk to the vegetable plants my mom grew in our backyard, trying to discover their secrets.

It hadn’t worked.

I later found out I’d need to get into college and pay thousands of dollars to get those secrets, and I studied my butt off trying to do just that, transforming myself from a C- student to a B- student. I was no butterfly, with that underwhelming transformation, but it had been enough to get into a decent school, but not enough to get into the one I’d truly wanted.

I hoped Irene’s car had enough space for all my books. We were going to drive straight to the house with our belongings in her car. After our vacation, we would then drive it all down to our moms’ houses where we’d stay for a few months before leaving to go join the workforce.

I was already sad about our incoming farewell, and I didn’t even know how I got along with the new Irene.

Oh shoot that’s right, I was planning on baking her cookies. When we were younger, she loved lemon cookies, so I’d bought all the ingredients to make them, planning on having them freshly made when she arrived. Unfortunately, I never remembered anything I didn’t write down, and my hand had been too sore from writing finals to write down a reminder to bake cookies.

Thankfully I still had time, but it was going to be close, I just had to be quick about it. I loved baking, and even though the stressful feeling of cooking something on a time limit freaked me out a bit, there was something satisfying about the frantic rush of looking for the one ingredient you were forgetting, of having nothing on your mind but the cookies.

I turned on some music, listening to The Cure as I sang along, throwing flour all over myself and the counter as I tried to mix everything together. I was going to have to clean up the dorm kitchen afterwards, but I could do that while the cookies were baking. I smiled; Irene was going to love them, and then we were going to be best friends forever.

Irene
I hated driving. It always gave me a headache, and that’s the last thing I needed when I was going to be seeing Chloe. Chloe was the kind of person who belonged more in the worlds that existed in candy advertisements than in real life. She was bright, excitable, and very, very sweet.

She was also my first crush. I sighed, wanting to forget that part of my life, but knowing I just needed to accept that it happened and forgive myself for being an awkward teenager, as hard as that was.

When we were going through puberty, I’d gone through the slow, several years long revelation that I was gay and had feelings for my best friend. What followed was an increasingly embarrassing series of attempts to get her to notice me as a potential date. In high school, we’d gone to every formal dance and prom together, and I’d tried harder and harder to doll myself up in the hopes that she’d finally realize what I wanted.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have teen romance in candyland, and sometimes it seemed that whatever hormone gave tweens the ability to have crushes never got around to working on Chloe.

I was at least thankful I didn't have to experience her getting heartbroken by annoying teenage boys, but there was definitely some part of me that felt relief when it was decided we would go to different schools.

She was still my best friend, and I loved spending time with her, but I’d definitely needed the space to get over her and find myself. Unluckily, I was starting to think I’d only done one of those.

While I’d had a few one night stands and a couple relationships that went nowhere throughout college, no one ever hit me with romantic attraction the same way Chloe would. The time I spent apart from Chloe always had me increasingly convinced I might be aromantic, and then she would come around and remind me what romance was, all with the grace of a polar bear from a high dive.

I’d decided once I heard we were going on this surprise vacation I would confess my feelings as soon as I could. I knew my feelings weren’t going anywhere at this point, and there was absolutely no chance of her ever figuring them out on her own, but I didn’t think it was fair for me to continue our relationship without giving her the full picture.

I didn’t think she would hate me or anything, she was too sweet to hate anyone, but I was worried it would strain our already frayed relationship. She had always been pretty physically affectionate with me, and for a long time, I’d felt guilty for enjoying it. Making me feel even guiltier was that I didn’t want her to treat me differently once I told her: I didn’t want her to stop.

I sighed again, why couldn’t we have the uncomplicated relationship we had as little kids, when we didn’t need drama or romance.

I checked the time, seeing that I was on track to get there a little early. Well, actually I was going to be 15 minutes later than I told her, but on Chloe time that was at least 5 minutes early. I had no idea what I was going to walk into, but I had seen it all. She always left something till the last minute and panicked about it before ending up being late. Why couldn’t I have fallen for someone more punctual?

I finished the last leg of the drive, the sun coasting down to the tops of the trees at the horizon, and the warm summer night breeze settling in. I parked the car, walking out to the dorms and heading to where I knew Chloe’s room was. It always made logistical sense for me to pick her up to bring us both home for the holidays, given she was on the way and didn’t own a car, or know how to drive for that matter, so I’d been here a few times.

I walked the vaguely familiar halls, stopping at her door and knocking on it.

Chloe opened the door immediately, and rushed out to hug me in an explosion of flour. I guessed she’s been baking. I smiled, hugging her back, listening to her squeal in excitement. Every time she baked it seemed like she only put half the ingredients in the bowl and threw the rest on whatever she was wearing, which was never an apron.

Her mom had given up years ago after buying an apron for her for the third time, only to have it mysteriously disappear like the rest.

“Hey there cinnamon bun,” I greeted her with a smile. I had many nicknames for her, all of them sweet things. I couldn’t help myself.

“Hey there stranger, I didn’t know Irene had a hot older sister. Why hasn’t she introduced us yet?” she grinned, looking me up and down, and I laughed in response.

That was the other thing about Chloe. She was a massive tease, and she had absolutely no clue. I had no idea how someone could say that and think it was anything other than flirting, but she’d been asked about it years ago in high school and she’d told them with a straight face she had no idea what they were talking about.

I was pretty sure Chloe was straight, and other than her unintentional flirting with me I had no indication otherwise, but it was moments like this that made me hope. Which was why I needed to just tell her about my feelings and get over it. Then she would stop making comments like that about me, and that would kind of suck, but at least we could be friends with clear air and a solid foundation.

I just needed to do the hardest thing known to humanity: get Chloe to engage in serious conversation.

It wasn’t entirely her fault, though. While a part of the difficulty was her airheadedness and unbreakable cheery attitude, the other difficulty was she had the unfortunate habit of breaking out into involuntary laughter whenever she was extremely socially uncomfortable, like she didn’t know what she was supposed to do so she just started laughing. Neither of us thought it was funny, and I had comforted her many times while she was trying to have a hard conversation with me or her mom and she couldn’t get herself to stop giggling. It also created a lot of awkward situations where someone would tell her something terrible and she would smile, trying not to laugh and they would think badly of her.

All together, it created the most awkward situation for me to be in. I could just blurt it out, not giving the awkward atmosphere time to form, but I knew if I did that she was dense enough to brush it off. So, awkward conversation it was.

She invited me in, taking me over to her couch where there was a plate of cookies sitting on the coffee table. “Surprise,” she said, throwing her hands in the air.

“You kind of ruined the surprise with the half a bag of flour on your shirt, and I guess mine too,” I looked down at my black t-shirt, the flour clearly visible, “But I still appreciate it all the same, lollipop.” I reached over and ruffled her hair, sitting down on the couch and grabbing a cookie.

She made an embarrassed expression, “Oh, yea, I forgot. Hey wait, how’d you know me putting flour on my shirt wasn’t an intentional fashion choice?!” She pouted.

She was so cute. I chuckled, “I guess I didn’t, that does sound like something you’d do.”

‘Oh shit, how was I going to bring this up,’ I thought to myself, ‘no time like the present,’ I resignedly decided.

“Hey so Chloe, awkward conversation incoming,” I started, grimacing.
She looked at me and sat down, nodding. I could see the corners of her mouth twitch, but she had gotten better at hiding it; if I hadn’t been looking I wouldn’t have noticed.

“So we’ve been friends a long time,” I continued, watching as she continued nodding at a slowly increasing pace.

“And when your friends there's a lot of feelings, right.”

“Right…” she responded, not seeming like she knew where I was going with this.

Hell, did I know where I was going with this?

“Umm so I’m gay… like, obviously gay, right,” I told her, gesturing to my presentation, stopping when she stopped nodding.

“Oh my gosh, congratulations!” She yelled, pulling me into a hug. “I thought you were going to end our whole friendship or something, this didn’t need to be a serious conversation at all, not that it isn’t a big deal for you, I mean it probably is, it’s just it’s not a big deal for me, I mean it really is, but like I’m not going to like hate you or anything you’re the best!” She pulled out of the embrace that I still hadn’t returned. “Did you get all that?” she grinned, excitedly.

Uhh… shit. What was I supposed to do now?

Her words of me ending our friendship haunted me. Maybe I could put it off for one more day. I’d thought she’d known I was gay, I mean, had she seen me? But this is Chloe so of course that was a revelation to her.

I was just doing this conversation in steps, that's all this was, I justified. I’m not procrastinating, just doing it in steps. I sighed, nodding reluctantly in response to her question, this was going to be an interesting vacation.