I loved this story, so I made an interactive version on Cycle AI where you can step into any character and live it yourself！ Kai was staring at the same page of his textbook. Twenty minutes. Impressive commitment to pretending I wasn't sitting right beside him. I knew he wanted an apology. I was trying not to smile. We were in detention because I'd annoyed our calculus teacher. My argument had been perfectly reasonable. Its timing, according to Kai, was suspicious. He'd had a date after school. "Tell Lucy you'll be late," I suggested. "Lexa," he corrected. "I cancelled it." Right. Lexa. I could remember his favorite food without thinking, but apparently the name of the girl taking him to dinner required serious effort. I'd forgotten the date when I opened my mouth in class. That was true. The small, shameful relief I felt now was also true. Kai was my best friend. I wasn't supposed to be pleased that his plans with someone else had collapsed. "Come over. I'll make pasta." He looked up. Alfredo? His favorite. Of course his favorite. I wasn't about to make him something he hated after ruining his afternoon. He smiled, and I felt absurdly accomplished. As though I'd won something. A dinner at my own house with a boy who had been coming over since we were children. Congratulations to me. Things hadn't felt ordinary since we'd kissed. That had started with a party game I refused to finish and a week of him ignoring me. I'd meant to fix a ridiculous argument. Instead, I kept noticing him in ways I couldn't switch off. At home, I made the pasta. We ate, played games, ignored everything neither of us knew how to say. His mother called until it was time to take him back. It was such an easy evening to mistake for something it wasn't. Eventually I stopped pretending to myself. I told him I thought I liked him. He wanted to be friends. Hearing it didn't erase all the little things that already felt like loving him. It just meant I had to do them quietly. So I tried a date of my own. Kai found problems with that too. The stranger might be dangerous. I ought to send updates. I should let him come over afterward. I agreed, because saying no to Kai had never been my strongest skill. On our team's overnight trip, he asked why I was meeting other people if I liked him. I wanted to ask what, exactly, he thought I'd been trying to survive these past weeks. I could feed him, listen to him, let him fall asleep beside me. But I couldn't keep treating every ordinary kindness as a chance that he might change his mind. I told him I needed the right to move on. He promised to be a better friend. Even offered to find me a date. I thought of him smiling over his favorite dinner. I wondered if he would help somebody else learn how to make it, then expect me to be grateful. #cycleai #BookTok #FriendsToLovers #SlowBurn #BLRomance - @bufbiwh719