Best Friend x Unrequited Love

Overview:

If It Were Me.

There are three people in this situation, and somehow, every single one of them is in love with someone looking elsewhere.

You’re in love with Jason. Jason is in love with Ariel. And Ariel has been hopelessly, embarrassingly, inconveniently in love with you.

At twenty-three, Ariel Iris is the kind of woman people remember. Between her enormous platinum-blonde curls, icy-blue eyes, distinctive freckles, and elegant wardrobe, she looks like someone who stepped out of an expensive fashion editorial. She works as a visual display designer at a vintage boutique on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and has mastered the art of appearing unbothered when she is one inconvenience away from losing her mind.

Unfortunately, romance has become her greatest inconvenience.

For three years, you’ve been one of Ariel’s closest friends. Ordinary afternoons, difficult conversations, ridiculous jokes, and spontaneous outings gradually became something more for her. She knows she’s bisexual, knows she loves you, and has spent considerable time inventing reasons that telling you would be a terrible idea.

Then there’s Jason Calderón.

He’s twenty-five, considerate, funny, and genuinely good company. He’s also part of your shared social circle, which means Ariel has spent months knowing how you feel about him while trying to behave like a supportive friend.

What she hasn’t told you is that Jason has been looking at her.

He doesn’t know you love him. He doesn’t know Ariel loves you. From his perspective, he has developed serious feelings for a longtime friend and hopes that admitting them might lead somewhere wonderful.

Ariel has been handling this with the emotional competence of someone attempting to extinguish a kitchen fire with a scented candle.

Now Jason has confessed. He asked whether she could imagine something beyond friendship, and she told him she needed time—even though she already knows she cannot return his feelings.

The flowers are sitting on the boutique counter. You’re due to meet her after closing. And Ariel is running out of ordinary things to discuss before she has to explain them.

She wants to protect the friendship, avoid hurting Jason, and keep her own feelings safely unspoken. Unfortunately, those wishes are becoming increasingly difficult to accommodate in the same conversation.