{ eleven }

                                        

                                              
putting your feelings into a tiny little box and burying it away is a helpful tactic when trying to be friends with someone like christopher sturniolo.
the more i have been getting to know him, the harder keeping that box sealed has been. 
he is so funny, and so clearly kind to his friends. he teases me of course, but there's such an obvious sense of friendliness that i've never been offended by something he's said. he texts me to ask what i'm doing, and he follows up about things i've mentioned. he is  caring. 
i don't let myself picture what type of boyfriend he would be. 
in moments like these, it's especially hard to keep that thought out. 
"you think the red one looks better?" chris asks. 
i look back down at my phone and peer into the screen. "for sure," i say. "the white is nice, but the red matches the sweatshirt so much better." 
i'm on my way back home from the grocery store, on facetime with chris. we were texting earlier, not unusual for us, before he started asking for advice on which hat he should wear. i know i could have asked him to send me a picture, but to be honest, i wanted to hear his voice. so before i could talk myself out of it, i hit the facetime button. 
chris didn't seem to mind at all. in fact, he seems to be having fun modelling the ball caps for me. 
he checks himself out in a mirror off-screen. "hm. i agree." he looks back and smiles at the camera. "thanks, bree." 
"of course! happy to help." 
"you almost back home?" he asks, making conversation. 
i pause at a crosswalk. look both ways before crossing. 
"yeah, just about. it's not a far walk." 
"that's good." the screen moves around a little and his face appears again. i think he's laying down in his bed now. "get anything interesting from the store?" 
"if you call microwave dinners and toilet paper interesting, then sure." 
our dinner at the restaurant—where chris annoyingly teased me about being a justin bieber fan girl—was already close to a month ago. in the time between then and now, we have been invited to parties with them, we've texted non-stop in our group chat, and we've also had plenty of hangouts with just the five of us. they're some of my closest friends now, and i appreciate them so incredibly much. 
but like i said earlier, suppressing my feelings for chris has been getting so much more difficult. i used to think that all i wanted was to be friends with him, but now that i've achieved that, why does my heart seem to yearn for more?
no. i've gone over this already. a hundred times. i might like chris, sure, but i don't want to be in a relationship. i know that now isn't the time for that. he might not even like me back (very possible), and he might not even want a girlfriend either. so there's that, too. 
and there are those words written in my journal. my biggest fear is having a boyfriend. those words are still true. the fear of comittment, the fear of disappointment. 
chris always tells me to get over my fears, but these ones are too big, even for me. i have no choice but to succumb to them. 
an email pops up on my screen just then. grateful for the distraction, i tap on the little g-mail icon. when i open up the email and read the subject line, i involuntarily gasp. 
"what?" chris asks, somewhat alarmed. 
i skim the email, taking in the information with a hand covering my mouth. oh my gosh!