Page 149 of The Score

I've seen it everywhere. Life, TV shows, and fanfic. For friends to make this kind of jump, they need to be sure. They need to be on the same page. People who say they're going to be friends after getting involved romantically never make it. It's too hard to go back to the way things were, if anyone's emotions get entwined.

For me it's too late. The only way out is for Pen to one day feel the same.

"This is too big to keep to yourself," Rafa says. "You need to give her a chance to make up her own mind."

I gaze up at the sky. It's going to be a clear night. It doesn't change the storm forming in the horizon, and the gray clouds approaching in my mind.

If Pen doesn't feel anything romantic for me— if she can't see herself getting there one day— I could be detonating something too big to repair between us.

If I need to tell her, then there's no way out, and I might have lost her already. How can a romantic man like me handle the love blooming inside, telling me that I can't fathom wrecking what we have, and the honesty she deserves? It seems like an impossible task. I need to tell her my soul has been calling for her since before I understood it for what it was. It's my job to do that while keeping every other promise, and crossing my fingers she won't take my love for poison.

"I will tell her." I take a deep breath. "After her dad's surgery. She has enough to deal with already."

It will give me time to figure out how to balance all my commitments to her… and to figure out what kind of saint I have to light candles to, so that one day she might get her heart involved the way mine is.