Childhood Sweethearts

** Harper **

What?!

The words boomed in Harper's ears like thunder. To think that it was even a possibility for Eli to … "No no no no," she rejected the thought immediately, as if afraid to consider it. "You got the wrong idea, Chelsea. We're not childhood sweethearts. He's four years older than me!"

Chelsea stared at her. "So? Is that supposed to be a lot?"

… Oh, maybe not anymore. Now that Harper was twenty-two, it didn't seem that far off from twenty-six anymore. But back home … "Well, it was a lot when we first met," she explained. "I was nine, and he was thirteen. It was unconventional enough for us to even be friends with that age gap."

The gossiping light in Chelsea's eyes turned curious. "Hmm … then tell me about it! How did you become buddies against all odds?"

Harper hesitated. She took a pull of her Guinness. It felt a bit awkward to talk about her silly teenage crush, especially after the disaster last night. But the alcohol was helping, and wasn't this the very reason why she wanted to meet up and chat with a girl friend?

"He's the same age as my brother," she said at last. "When he moved into our neighborhood, he started at the same middle school my brother went to, and they became friends pretty quickly. The rest of our family met him at my brother's birthday party that year … and then my mom started inviting him over a lot. Probably because he lived with a single dad, and I guess she felt bad for him. She tried to include him in our family gatherings as much as she could."

"Aww, that was nice of her," Chelsea said. "So you just naturally started hanging out with him?"

Harper nodded. "Well, remember I like video games? I was apparently good enough at it that the boys didn't mind including me on their team. It turned out that we got along really well in the basement … then on vacations too, whenever my mom decided to take us on a weekend road trip."

She noticed belatedly that she was smiling. Those were really some of her favorite memories — she and Eli ganging up together in a game against her brother, or her parents sitting at the front of their SUV, the three of them dozing off in the back.

They were just friends at the time, innocent kids that enjoyed each other's company. It wasn't until much later that she discovered her attachment to Eli had gone deeper than she thought. It wasn't until when he and her brother left for college, and she missed him so much more fiercely than she did her brother, that she realized her feelings had started growing in a different direction.

"Family gatherings, game parties, and vacations together?" Chelsea's voice broke her reverie. "Harper, you can't convince me at this point that he's not your childhood sweetheart. And you should see that look on your face — that's not the right expression for talking about just a friend!"

Oops, was it that obvious? Harper's smile turned sheepish. She picked up her beer again and finished it down to the bottom. "I guess …" she mustered the courage to let go of the secret she had kept to herself for years, "I guess … I may have had a crush on him at some point … But that was years ago. I'm over it now."

Chelsea almost choked on her food. "H-Hang on, hang on," she coughed. "You had a crush on him, and you didn't mention that till now? We've been talking for all this time, and you hid this most important piece of the puzzle from me?"

"What does it matter?" Harper ignored her friend's overreaction. "Like I said, I'm over it now, and the feeling wasn't mutual anyway. It's obvious that he always thinks of me as a little sister."

"Guys don't watch smutty movies with their little sisters." Chelsea pushed her food to the side, looking serious. "Okay, based on all the new information you just gave me, my professional opinion has been updated." She held up one finger. "Possibility number one, same as what I said before. He's interested in you, but since he doesn't know if you feel the same way for him, he used the movie as a cover to see how you'd react."

"But—"

"But that's not the most likely scenario, since you guys already know each other so well, and since you said he was acting like a gentleman when you started feeling awkward. So, possibility number two," — Chelsea held up another finger — "you've been friendzoned. Heck, worse than friendzoned, you've probably been sexless-friend-zoned."

"… What zoned?" Harper wasn't sure if she heard the word right.

"It's a thing that happens to childhood sweethearts. Since they've known each other long before they understand the concept of gender and sex, they continue to see the other person as 'sexless' even after they grow up. In this case, it means he forgot you were a girl when he invited you to the movie, and he simply didn't think of the situation as something that might feel awkward to you."

… Well, that was certainly comforting to hear. And confidence-boosting. Harper wondered whether Chelsea was trying to help her feel better or worse, and whether it was a sad mistake to be talking about this at all.

"The good news is," Chelsea continued, oblivious to Harper's internal agony, "childhood sweethearts tend to experience a drastic change in their relationship after a period of separation during adulthood. That's exactly where you are right now! Don't you see this is the perfect opportunity to pick things back up and steer it into the direction you want? You're obviously still into him, right?"

That question caught Harper off guard.

She was obviously still into him … right?