More Than Friends

DISCLAIMER: This story features a romantic relationship between two girls (lesbian). If this is not to your preference, please feel free to explore other content.

always knew there was something different about the way I felt around her.

Iris and I met in seventh grade, when she walked up to me on the first day of school and offered me half of her sandwich because I forgot my lunch. We were inseparable after that. Even though high school placed us in different classes, nothing really changed. We still ate lunch together, walked home together, texted until midnight about pointless things, and made stupid jokes only we understood.

She was my best friend. Or at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

It was a crisp autumn afternoon when it happened—the moment I could no longer ignore the feelings I had buried so deep. We had decided to hang out at the bookstore near school, our favorite place. She sat cross-legged on the floor, flipping through a poetry book, reading out lines she thought sounded beautiful.

“This one,” she murmured, her eyes scanning the page. “‘I never meant to love you. And yet, here I am, drowning in the thought of you.’”

She sighed, a small smile playing on her lips. I swallowed hard, my heart thudding in my chest. Maybe she felt it too. Maybe I wasn’t imagining it—the glances that lingered too long, the way she always found my hand when we walked together, how she laughed the hardest at my dumbest jokes.

I reached for a book on the shelf, just to have something to do with my hands. “That’s dramatic,” I teased, but my voice was softer than I intended.

She tilted her head at me. “Love is dramatic.”

“Maybe,” I said, turning a page I wasn’t really reading. “Or maybe it’s simple, and people just make it complicated.”

She studied me for a moment, then smiled. “Maybe.”

It wasn’t until we were outside, walking home under the golden-pink sky, that she reached for my hand. She had done it a thousand times before, but this time, I couldn’t ignore the way my heart clenched. I glanced at her, and she was already looking at me, her expression unreadable.

“Evelyn,” she said hesitantly. “Can I ask you something?”

I nodded, afraid to speak.

“If I told you I liked someone… like, really liked them… would you be honest with me about how you feel about it?”

I felt the breath leave my lungs. My fingers twitched in her grasp, and she tightened her hold, as if she was afraid I’d let go.

I forced myself to smile. “Of course.”

She hesitated. “What if… what if that person was you?”

I stopped walking. She stopped too, her fingers still wrapped around mine. I could hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, feel the warmth of her skin against mine. My world tilted slightly, but in the best way possible.

I let out a shaky breath. “Then I’d say… I really, really like that person too.”

A slow smile spread across her face, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t have to wonder or overthink. I didn’t have to bury anything.

She liked me.

And I liked her.

And for once, love wasn’t complicated at all.