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It was dark and stormy the night I fell in love. Well, perhaps it wasn’t the night I fell in love itself. It’s more likely that it was the night that I realised exactly what all of our years of friendship and camaraderie were leading to.
Our flat was hot that night. The air conditioning had been working on off and on for weeks, and London was suffering under the most intense heat wave it had seen in years. Arthur and I spent much of the last month sitting around our house nothing but boxers, lying in front of box fans on high. It was pretty, but it saved us from melting. Especially after we realised that Gwen and Lance probably didn’t want us crashing at their place every night for pretty obvious reasons.
Before you jump to any conclusions, let me tell you that it wasn’t Arthur being half naked that made me realise I was in love with him. The two of us had been friends since we were children (Arthur a bratty 6 year old, myself a quiet four year old), so it was not uncommon for us to see each other in states of semi-dress. Swimming in summer. Sleepovers after gaming sessions. Shared college dorms. Walking in on each other in delicate situations. We had done it all. And none of that made my heart clench with realisation.
As the night progressed, the heat lingering despite the intensity of the storm, we settled sprawled on our living room floor, Netflix set to an Iron Man marathon. Each of us had a box fan of our own to soak up, the tv volume up high to compensate for the noise. It was panning out to be a fairly good night, our voices creating our own commentary for the movie, when suddenly our flat was dark.
At first I simply lay there, not sure how I was ever going to survive the night. No power during a heat wave? We were going to die. Melt into puddles of Merlin and Arthur goop, stuck to our flat floor forever as an awkward welcoming present to the next tenants.
Finally a sad groan from my best friend made me get up. A whiny Arthur was the worst sort; trust me. I couldn’t fix the power, but I could at least let us see. It didn’t take me long to grope around before I finally found what I needed.
“Aren’t you glad my mom made sure we had all these candles and matches everywhere?” I asked once I finally had the candle lit. I crawled closer to Arthur to let him share the light before he lit his own damn candle. “The power used to go out all the time at our house in…”
The end of my sentence got caught in my throat, more important things on my mind: namely the small, intimate smile resting on Arthur’s face. It was unlike any smile I had ever seen before. It contained none of his cockiness or mirth, not even a hint of mockery. Instead his eyes were soft, a beautiful blue even in the flickering light, while his lips barely quirked upwards so softly they wouldn’t have disturbed a butterfly.
Simply put, it was breathtakingly beautiful.
I smiled back, unsure but hopeful because if I read that smile right, perhaps I wasn’t the only person realising he was in love.