“I love you.”
The words hung between them, both a declaration and a question at the same time.
A question that desperately awaited an answer.
Arwan found himself holding his breath as he watched Corvina’s reaction. The female elf appeared to be locked someplace between shock and disbelief, staring at him like she’d never seen him before.
Clearly, he’d been far more subtle in his past advances than he’d thought.
He shifted uncomfortably on the stone bench that they sat on, every second that she spent in silence bringing him more and more doubt. Had he been too forward? What if she didn’t share his feelings? Had he just wrecked their friendship forever with three stupid words?
When the silence became too much for him to bear, he began to curse himself. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said anything at all.
But it was too late to take it back.
“I don’t expect you to share the feeling,” Arwan said quickly, trying to soften what he realized had been a rather sudden revelation. Corvina seemed to shake herself from her stupor upon hearing his voice, tilting her raven-haired head to the side as he went on, “You’re my best friend; I just thought that you deserved to kn—”
He was cut short when Corvina suddenly shot forward and silenced him with a quick kiss on the lips, drawing a grunt of surprise from him. She pulled away an instant later, and Arwan could see that her cheeks were flushed—maybe almost as much as his were in that moment.
Now it was his turn to stare in shock.
Corvina smiled, albeit shyly. “I suppose it’s a good thing that I love you too—as a friend, but also something more.”
Arwan managed to shake off the worst of his surprise and returned the look.
When Corvina leaned forward to kiss him again, Arwan was more than ready to kiss her back.
Thank you for reading! I wrote this story as part of the Storytelling Collective’s Flash Fiction February 2023 challenge, so a huge thanks to them for inspiring me to give it a shot.
