Chapter 52

Jordan knew two things for certain. First, that her friendship with Natalie was the most important thing in her life, and that she would never do anything to jeopardize it, and second, that she was catastrophically, terribly in love with her.

The latter was a recent discovery for Jordan, but, she’d realized, not a recent development. It was an old, long-standing, incident. After more than a decade spent as the fiery red-hair girl’s best friend, their relationship had settled in a way concrete would. Their friendship had been defined so firmly that—even coming to terms with their compatible sexuality in their teen years—it’d never crossed their mind to be together in that way. Because that wasn’t what they were, and what they were was perfect, and so neither of them had wanted, or even thought, to risk it.

It had taken a monumental event to prove how flimsy those ‘concrete roles’ were, but when it’d happened, it’d cracked open like an egg, revealing the horrible mess inside.

Unfortunately, Natalie was a gargantuan idiot.

Jordan already knew this. Natalie’s relationship with Sofia had made it clear ages ago. When it came to romance of a casual sort, Natalie was more than fluent. Over the years, Jordan had seen her best friend work her way through plenty of girls, basically every eligible woman—who swung that way—in the local sparring scene. Even a few straight ones, if she had to guess.

But the moment Natalie took interest in someone her conscious brain hadn’t slotted as ‘a potential girlfriend’, she was hopeless. Sofia, obviously, had been the first culprit. Having grown up together, and always eking out wins against her, Sofia had slotted into Natalie’s brain as ‘her rival’. That Natalie had romantic inclinations—though the extent Jordan wasn’t fully certain on—toward the girl was plain as day. But she’d been defined in Natalie’s head, and it would take something close to the world ending for her to realize it.

Likewise, Jordan had a role. ‘Best friend’. Thusly sorted, breaking away would, like Sofia, be close to impossible.

And that was fine. As Jordan had already decided, her friendship with Natalie came first. She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it, and that truth held much firmer than her newest realization: how horribly in love she was. Her gargantuan crush took second, third, fourth priority to their lifelong friendship. Especially when her crush might not even be returned.

Not that Jordan thought it wasn’t returned, that her affection for Natalie in a romantic way was one-sided. She wasn’t quite as oblivious as her best friend. Though, at the same time, it was well known that love blinded, and so Jordan could easily be under, over, or misreading things entirely. That was the problem. She was too close to the matter. She’d never see it clearly.

So, while Jordan thought it was returned—the hints were there—unfortunately, she could never be positive, even if she felt she was positive. Which she didn’t in the first place. So, she had zero intentions of risking anything by pushing for a change in the status quo.