Into You
Inspired by Into You-Ariana
IMPORTANT NOTICE: HIT PLAY ON THE AUDIO
HAVE YOU?
OKAY THEN CARRY ON.
HAPPY READING.
(Please I just really want y’all to read while the song is playing to get the vibe. Thank you)
FOR BEGINNING TO FIRST CHORUS (0:00-1:31)
Being in love with my best friend is one of the worst things to happen to me.
It’s an all-consuming feeling, one that has me behaving irrationally, overthinking moments, looks and any slight contact.
Maybe that’s dramatic.
Maybe if I said it out loud people would laugh and tell me to get over myself. But they’re not the ones sitting across from him every day pretending everything is normal while their entire world slowly catches fire.
I don’t know when it happened.
That’s the worst part.
There wasn’t a moment. No lightning strike. No sudden realization.
Just one day he was Zion, my best friend, the guy I’ve known for years, the guy I complain to, laugh with, spend entire weekends doing absolutely nothing with.
And then somehow, he became the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about at night.
I know it sounds crazy, but a million sledgehammers hit my chest anytime I glance at him.
He smiles and I feel the sun.
He laughs and I want to bottle up the sound and listen to it over and over again.
We’re seated face to face, playing chess and I’m losing.
Badly.
Not because he is better than me. He’s good, sure, but I’ve beaten him enough times that he still complains about games I won three years ago.
No, I’m losing because I can’t focus on the board.
I can’t focus on anything except him.
He reaches forward to move a pawn.
My eyes follow the movement of his hand.
Long fingers. Familiar fingers. Hands I’ve seen a thousand times.
Hands that shove my shoulder when he laughs.
Hands that steal fries from my plate.
Hands that rest casually against my arm whenever he wants my attention.
My chest tightens.
I hate myself.
He takes my piece and I think of him taking me.
“Your move,” he says.
I stare at the board.
I have absolutely no idea what’s happening on it.
“Right.”
I move a piece.
Immediately, Zion starts laughing.
A bright, warm sound that settles somewhere beneath my ribs and refuses to leave.
“You serious?” he asks.
“What?”
“You just gave me your bishop.”
I look down.
Apparently, I did.
His grin widens.
His entire face lights up whenever he’s amused, like someone switched on a hidden sun behind his skin.
I want to kiss him; to have a taste of the sunshine.
I find myself staring.
Again.
There’s a bead of sweat near his temple.
I watch it trail down from his brow, past the sharp line of his jaw, and something in me comes completely undone.
I don’t know when this started. I shouldn’t want him the way I do. I’ve never really been attracted to guys but somehow all I can think of is him.
I watch the bead of sweat slow near his jaw and—
I’m leaning across the board.
My mouth finds his cheek first, where that bead of sweat has been torturing me. The salt of him hits my tongue and something in my chest cracks open.
He goes still for exactly one breath. One. And then he turns his face toward mine and crashes into me.
There’s nothing slow about it. His mouth hits mine like he’s been holding something back for too long and just lost the fight with it.
He grabs my shirt in both fists like he needs something to hold onto.
It’s messy and uncoordinated for exactly one second, but then it clicks and it’s worse.
So much worse.
Because now it’s consuming.
Now I’m kissing him back just as hard, just as frantically, like we’re both trying to make up for time we didn’t know we were losing.
I feel the small sound he makes more than I hear it, this low, wrecked thing that undoes me completely, and then my hand is fisting in the front of his shirt and I’m pulling him across the table, chess pieces scattering off the edges, clattering to the floor.
Neither of us flinch at the sound.
Neither of us care.
He gets up. Climbs over the table without breaking the kiss, like the distance is an inconvenience he’s done tolerating.
His hand cups my jaw, and I feel each of his fingers separately, feel the warmth of his palm, as he holds me like I’m something he has been waiting a long time to hold. Something he was afraid he wasn’t going to get to.
I pull him closer by the shirt until there’s no space left to close. I’m half out of my chair. I’d be on the floor. I’d knock the whole table over, knock down every wall in this apartment —
“Checkmate in three.”
I blink.
The room reassembles itself around me. The fan. The low music. The window going amber with evening light.
Zion is watching me from across the table, chin resting in his palm, a quiet and easy smile on his face like he’s been sitting there contentedly for the last thirty seconds and not kissing me with both hands on my face.
The chess board sits between us, every piece exactly where it was. His cheek still carries that bead of sweat, trailing slowly toward his jaw. It has absolutely ruined me and it doesn’t even know it.
FOR SECOND VERSE TO SECOND CHORUS (1:32-2:41)
If you can only see how much time is left of the song go to (2:33)
I have been in love with Carter for so long that it barely feels like being in love anymore.
It’s just part of me.
Like breathing.
Like muscle memory.
Like knowing Carter takes two sugars in his coffee despite claiming he doesn’t like sweet things.
I’ve loved him long enough for the sharp edges to wear down.
Long enough to stop wishing for things I can’t have.
Long enough to accept reality.
Carter is straight.
End of story.
Or at least that’s what I’ve been telling myself for years.
Which is why the last month has been so unbelievably strange.
I know him well enough to know when something is moving under the surface.
I know his tells. The way he laughs a half-second too late when he’s distracted. The way he finds reasons to look at me and then immediately doesn’t. The way he goes quiet in the middle of sentences like his own thoughts ambushed him.
I’ve seen all of it before. I catalogued it a long time ago, the way you catalogue someone you love, collecting details like they’re important because they are.
I saw those tells in Carter, sophomore year, before he finally admitted he was in love with Jade from his stats class.
He has all of them right now. Every single one.
Directed at me.
But I’m not going to say that out loud.
I’m not going to let myself run with it.
Not fully.
Because the distance between probably and actually is where hope lives and hope is a dangerous thing to carry around your best friend.
Thouh, I’m also not going to pretend I don’t see it. I’m about ninety percent sure. Maybe ninety-two.
And I have been patient. I have been so incredibly patient.
I’m starting to lose it a little.
He moves his bishop. It’s a terrible move. He’s been making terrible moves for the entirety of the match because he keeps drifting somewhere else entirely and coming back with this look on his face that is doing things to my composure I refuse to examine in real time.
“Checkmate in three,” I tell him.
He blinks, resurfaces from wherever he went to and stares at the board in disbelief, then resignation.
Then he looks up at me.
God. That look.
It’s the shy one.
The one he doesn’t know he does, chin slightly dropped, eyes coming up through his lashes, the corner of his mouth caught between a smile and something more uncertain.
Carter has never once in his life been shy and yet somehow he reserves this specific expression exclusively for moments that matter, and it has always, without fail, made me want to do something deeply inadvisable.
I keep my face neutral through what I consider an enormous act of personal discipline.
“I love—” he starts.
—you”
He stands up. Rounds the table. And then he’s in front of me and I don’t get a single word out before he kisses me.
His breath stutters when our mouths finally meet, like his body can’t decide between this and falling apart entirely.
He tastes like want.
There’s something desperate in the way he keeps pulling me closer even though there’s no closer to get, like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he loosens his grip for even a second.
I feel that. God, I feel that.
I want to slow it down. I want to take my time, catalogue every second of this, make it last. But he makes a sound against my mouth and any intention I had of being patient disintegrates on the spot.
My hands find his waist, and I walk him backwards. He goes, stumbling slightly, catching my shirt in both fists to steady himself. His back finds the wall and the small impact pulls a sharp exhale out of him and he tips his head back for just a moment, just one breath—
“Zion.”
I’m back in the room.
Carter is sitting across the table, chess pieces exactly where they were, looking at me with that shy expression still on his face, a little uncertain now, like he wasn’t sure I was listening.
I wasn’t listening.
“Sorry,” I say, and my voice comes out steadier than I deserve. “What were you saying?”
He drops his eyes to the table for a second. Turns a captured pawn over in his fingers.
“I love that you saw I was distracted and still didn’t let me win.”
The words land soft. Too soft for what they are on the surface.
I look at him for a moment.
“Letting you win would’ve been an insult,” I say finally.
FOR BRIDGE TO END (2:42-END)
If you can only see how much time is left of the song go to (1:22)
The second game doesn’t last long.
Not because either of us is playing badly. Because neither of us is really playing at all.
Carter knocks over his own knight reaching for a rook. Doesn’t pick it up.
I don’t say anything.
He’s not looking at the board anymore. He’s looking at the table, jaw tight, turning that same captured pawn over and over in his fingers.
I watch him without watching him, a trick I’ve spent two years perfecting, and I can see it happening in real time. Something building behind his face. Something that keeps almost surfacing and then doesn’t.
“Zi.”
His voice comes out low. A little rough around the edges.
I look up.
“I—” he stops. Exhales through his nose. Tries again. “I don’t know how to say this without it being—” another stop. He sets the pawn down. “Without it changing everything.”
I don’t move. I don’t breathe wrong. I have wanted this moment for so long and now that it’s here, I am genuinely afraid that if I say the wrong thing it will collapse.
“What if it changes everything for the better,” I say carefully.
He looks at me for a long moment.
“What if it doesn’t.”
“Carter.” I lean forward, just slightly, elbows on the table. “What are you trying to say.”
“I’m working up to it.”
“You’ve been working up to it for the past week.”
His eyes snap to mine. Something startled moving through them. “How long have you—”
“Known?” I hold his gaze. “A while.”
He stares at me. The pawn is back in his fingers without him seeming to notice, turning and turning.
“And you didn’t say anything.”
“It wasn’t mine to say.”
He’s quiet for a moment.
“I don’t—” he starts. Stops. Sets the pawn down very deliberately, like he’s clearing space. “I don’t know what this is. Or what it makes me. I’m still figuring that out.”
“Okay.”
“I just know that it’s you.” His voice drops on the last word. Lands somewhere in my chest and stays there.
“I don’t know how to explain it better than that. It’s just — it’s you, E. It’s been you for a while and I’m so tired of sitting across from you and not—”
He stops himself.
Then he stands up.
He comes around the table slowly, takes my face in his hands, then he kisses me.
I stand up. I have to. I can’t sit still through this.
Because it’s real. Because it’s him.
We pull back at the same time. Just far enough to breathe. His forehead drops against mine and we stay there for a moment, eyes closed, the chess board forgotten behind us, pieces scattered, the game long over.
How does one write when it feels like their creative juices have dried up?
They use one month to write a post.
I had this idea on the first of June. Its currently the 25th. Two posts planned for this month.
And quite honestly, I don’t think this is good, but I’ll blame that on my creative block.
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For all returning subscribers, thank you for sticking with an almost dormant newsletter
Expect one more queer post before Pride month runs out.
Love you all.
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Yessss! This is what the fans want to see! 😌✨
As soon as I saw the title I started singing the song😂😂😂