“Yes.”

The warmth is gratifying and I can feel the smile stretching out my face, displaying hopes long dashed, now rekindles in electric sparks. I can look straight into her eyes again as her ice blue eyes seem to warm for a moment.

Except I feel like jelly, and my insides tell me that what I just said was wrong. I had realised that my girlish fantasies were just that. I loved Melina but only as a friend, and any love that I had given to her over the years was a mere dream, made real only by my deluded dreams.

But I could spend my life with my best friend, happy. I could love her more. With such understated beauty as hers, anyone could find themselves falling for her. For every extra second that I gaze upon her long features I fall more and more in love.

Maybe these weren’t simply the fantasies of a foolish little girl. Perhaps once hope had left, I simply pushed my longings out of my head, confining her image to my mind for evening pleasures.

And now every time she speaks my heart skips a beat.