At that statement she stopped dead in her tracks, not wanting to miss this opportunity I ran after her and stood in front of her. The moment I looked at her I noticed she too had tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m sorry that the way I behaved made you uncomfortable, I know that you don’t agree with the way I feel. But you and Al are my best friends and I love you, and I miss you. So can we please find a way to go back to what we were?”

“I don’t hate you,” she said quietly. I looked at her in hope

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t,” she said wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “Alice knew right?”

“Knew what?” I asked

“That you’re, you know,” she said mumbling at her feet

“Oh, that, well sort of.”

“But you didn’t think to tell me?” suddenly Dana’s anger for the last few weeks seemed to have a new cause.

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t want you to hate me.”

“I wouldn’t have,” she stated. “Sure, I would have needed time to get used to the idea, but I could never hate you, and as one of your best friends you should have trusted me enough to know that!”

I just stood there, too stunned to say anything. Dana was right, I should have told her the truth.

“I’m sorry,” I cried. Hoping that Dana would see how genuine I was. “I’ll do anything to make it right, can we please just be friends again? I’ve hated this time without you.”

Suddenly Dana lunged at me and held me in the tightest hug she’d ever given me, in those few seconds my body sagged with relief, relief that no matter what, I knew my friends were with me. The sudden surge of relief also bought about complete and total exhaustion, my body suddenly caving to the stress of the last few weeks.

Dana pulled back and smiled at me, “We should get to class”

“Yes” I agreed although every fibre of my body said to just leave for the day

We walked to the end of a corridor where we were due to go in separate directions, “You should speak to Alice about tomorrow,” I said, just as we separated