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Falco was out of breath but more than that he was embarrassed. The girl behind the counter, Gabi, also known as his best friend, was smirking at him smugly because they both knew he had failed.
“Are you done yet? You can’t just stay here playing this game every day I thought-” He stopped listening to her as he wallowed in his defeat. He thought about leaving before he made it worse, but he looked up and saw that giant teddy bear that inspired him to play the game in the first place, and determination swelled in him.
“Hand me some more,” he said while slamming another five-dollar bill down.
He wasn’t sure what he thought her reaction would be but huffing in annoyance wasn’t it. It bothered him but he wasn’t about to ask her about it, especially when she already handed him five more balls to throw at the bottles.
But as soon as he grabbed the first ball in perpetration to throw, she started talking. “Why do you want to do this so badly? I promise you the game’s rigged. I couldn’t even beat it if I wanted to.” Her voice was quiet but somehow had more bite than Falco had ever really heard directed at him before.
Falco thought she was just saying it to make him back down, but he didn’t understand why. “Winning that bear is important to me!” His voice had risen slightly but in his defense, the frustration of having tried for three days to win Gabi the bear and failing was starting to creep in, but apparently, this was the wrong thing to say.
Falco was used to Gabi being passionately angry. He was used to yelling and flailing arms but not whatever this was. “Just go away, seriously. I don’t want you here.”
Falco stood in place waiting for her to say something else. He wasn’t expecting an apology. Gabi didn’t apologize, at least directly, but he was waiting for some kind of explanation for her sudden behavior change. She certainly seemed normal yesterday when he visited the fair. Happy even when she realized he had come to visit her. But something had changed.
After realizing she wasn’t going to say anything else he turned away and left. He didn’t get to play the game he had paid for, but he would rather waste five dollars than have Gabi so directly say she didn’t want him around like that again.
When he returned home, he immediately sought out his brother Colt hoping for answers. His brother always seemed far more comfortable dealing with girls. He climbed up the stairs two at a time and quickly slammed open his brother’s room. “Colt, something’s wrong with Gabi. I need help.”
Colt stood at his desk writing something in a notebook. Falco assumed it was his college homework but didn’t question it further. “Gabi’s mad at me and I have no idea why.”
Colt sighed before slamming the notebook shut and shoving it into his bag hanging off the chair. “Eventually, I’m not going to be here and then what are you going to do?”
Falco shrugged helplessly. “If only she was easier to understand. But maybe I wouldn’t love her as much if that was the case. I think-”
“You were saying she was mad at you?”
Falco knew that he cut him off on purpose, but he decided to let it go. He at least tried to be aware of annoying other people with things like that. “She’s more than mad at me. I think so at least. I’ve seen Gabi mad before and it’s not what this is. She was cold and quiet” Falco almost shuddered remembering their brief conversation earlier.
“Well, what did you do to set her off?”
Falco finally moved into Colt’s room and sat down on his bed. “That’s the problem. Usually, when Gabi’s mad it’s easy to deal with because she’ll let everyone around her what’s wrong, but she was acting strange.” Falco tried thinking more about everything that led up to today that could have contributed to his best friend’s behavior. “She got a job at the fair and every day since it’s opened, I’ve come to see her but-”
“How much money have you spent!?”
Falco blushed at Colt’s outburst. “It’s not as much as you’re thinking. She gave me discounted tickets.” Falco turned to look at him and Colt still seemed skeptical, but he hadn’t said anything else about it, so Falco continued his story. “As I was saying, I’ve visited her every day and when nobody is at her game, I’ll talk to her to keep her from being bored. The first day I noticed this giant teddy and I wanted to win it for her, but I lost every time. She seemed to get more and more upset, and I have no idea why. I was trying to do a nice thing.”
Colt didn't say anything for a while after that. They both simply sat in silence in the room. Falco wasn’t sure how long it had been, but he had almost dozed off when his brother finally started speaking. “Have you thought about asking her?”
A pit settled in his stomach, “what if that makes it worse?” Falco could handle a lot, but he wasn’t sure he could handle that. It’s always been incredibly delicate as it was. He was always one wrong step from potentially losing her forever it seemed.
“I think she’s more likely to know what’s bothering her than I do. Besides, like I said, I’m moving out soon and maybe it’s time you start solving these things on your own.”
Falco knew he was right, so he figured there was no use in arguing about it. “Yeah, I guess so. Thanks for the talk.” Then he left his brother’s room feeling about as good as he did when he first entered. He’d talk to her tomorrow, Falco decided. He even convinced himself that it could only make things better by the time he finally went to sleep.
The next day at school Falco felt sick. Gabi was avoiding him. She had taken the bus instead of walking with him and now he’s in the cafeteria and she’s sitting by herself instead of with their friends at lunch. He stood in the middle of the room with his tray in hand deciding if he should join her or Udo and Zofia. Finally, he took a deep breath and made his decision.
“Gabi, I think we need to talk.” He said while sitting down beside her. She didn’t respond and instead continued to eat as if he wasn’t there. “I’m not sure what I did yesterday that upset you so much but I’m sorry I didn’t mean to and if you tell me what I did then I won’t do it again.”
Gabi paused her eating for a split second before continuing. It was obvious she was finding an excuse to ignore him, but he was fine with that. She’d be out of food soon anyway. Falco quickly glanced over at their friends only to see them turn their heads away. They were staring at the two of them. Falco wasn’t really surprised; he knew if their roles were reversed Gabi would convince him to try and eavesdrop on them.
Finally, Gabi placing her fork down brought Falco’s attention back to her. Their eyes met and they simply stared at each other, seemingly daring the other to speak first. “Do you seriously not know why what you did upset me?” Again, Gabi wasn’t openly angry. She seemed even less so than yesterday. Gone were her biting words and wrinkled face. Her words then hurt Falco more than any scathing remark could have.
“I don’t. Please explain it to me and I promise I’ll never do it again.” He knew they weren’t the words Gabi wanted to hear but they were the only honest ones he could give.
Gabi broke eye contact with him and stared straight forward. He wasn’t sure what she could have possibly been looking at. “Forget it, let’s pretend it never happened. It was stupid.”
Falco stared at her profile and even when their friendship seemed so dangerously close to being over, he couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked. Her words still shocked him to his bones. Gabi admitting, she had done something stupid was so unlike her it made him squirm in his seat. “I don’t think anything you do is stupid.”
Gabi laughed mockingly like he’d come to know and Falco almost relaxed. At least that sound was familiar. “Oh, really? Then what do you consider confessing your feelings for your best friend only to find out they don’t care at all.”
Falco had never felt more unsure than he had in that second. Was she so upset she was spitting his feelings back at him? Surely not even Gabi would do something like that even when she’s this mad at him. But he had no idea what else she could be talking about.
“Gabi, why would you say something like that?”
She grabbed onto the front of his shirt pulling him closer to her. Her knuckles had turned white from the effort but as she opened her mouth to speak her eyes started and then the bell rang. It seemed to have snapped her out of it because she immediately grabbed her things and rushed out. He could see her whipping at her eyes as she left the room.
Falco couldn’t focus on any of his classes after that. The image of Gabi crying because of him was burned into his memories forever. He was going to make this right no matter what. Even if she never wanted to talk to him after all of this was over, he couldn’t leave things like that.
So, he waited for her outside her classroom at the end of the school day. It might have been a little extreme, but he couldn’t stand waiting a second longer.
She left the class and their eyes quickly found each other, “it’s you.” She seemed surprised as if she didn’t expect him to come and try to talk to her.
“Yeah, it’s me.” He waited to see if she would do anything, but she seemed frozen in her spot. “I’m still not sure what happened yesterday but I’ve decided to put it all out on the table right now. I’m in love with you and I probably have been since we first met. I’m sorry about not being honest about it sooner but I didn’t want to make our friendship weird.” He thought he would feel scared if he ever confessed his feelings but, in the moment, he felt content. His secret was finally out in the open.
Gabi balled her hands into fists. They were by her side but shaking with anger. Then she shouted and turned to the side and kicked the nearest locker.
“Are you okay?” He went to reach out to her to comfort her but then thought better of it and let his hands lay limply by his sides. “I still don’t know what I did but I’m sorry again.”
“I love you too.”
That was the last thing he expected to hear back. “I'm sorry but can you say that a-”
“I always thought you must have loved me. I must admit I wasn’t sure I felt the same way, but I just had a realization at the fair but when I tried to express it you didn’t reciprocate. After that, I wasn’t sure what to do because I was so sure you would feel the same way.”
“I do feel the same way,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry I promise I had no idea I was distracted by how annoyed I was because all I wanted to do was win you that stupid teddy bear.”
Gabi smirked, “you know I can just buy it for 20 dollars, right?”
“What!” Falco shouted. “I spent probably over 100 dollars trying to get that thing.”
Falco was so shocked that he hadn’t noticed what was happening until suddenly his hand was in hers. “Come on, let’s get going. I’ll even buy that stuffed bear you wanted so badly.”