Sometimes things don't hit me until the next day. I was making Ernie's sandwich, he's a regular and comes in at least once a week. He was with his wife this time. Both of them are in their late 40's early 50's. They were holding hands and just being cute together when they both just started dancing to the song that came over the speakers of the shop.

He grabbed her by the waist and swayed back and forth to the soft piano ballad. She giggled and rolled her eyes at him. I watched him twirl her around and they both laughed as she nearly knocked over the cookie display.

The way they stared at each other, the smile on their faces. How happy they seemed even though it was just a regular old day at the usual sandwich shop, they still found something to smile about. Their love made my guts twist and turn inside me.

I felt my cheeks flush as I thought of Hilary and her smile, her giggle. The way we danced around like a bunch of idiots the day before. My heart skipped several beats when an image of us being like that popped into my head.

No! No, no, no, this can't be happening to me! I can't like Hilary King! No! Bad! Zoey likes Hilary and if she found out that I thought of Hilary like that, even for a second, it is basically betrayal. I felt my heart sink.

What the heck has gotten into me?

There is no way I like Hilary King! None. It's impossible. She's just so annoyingly perfect, and nice, and sweet, and silly, and cute, and... No! It's not like I meant to think of Hilary like that, it just sort of happened.

This is so confusing.

On the one hand, I was mad at Zoey for being such a jerk to me over the past couple of weeks. On the other, she is my friend and I sort of still have feelings for her, regardless of the fact that she crushed my heart into a million and one tiny sharp pieces.

I felt like taffy being pulled and stretched in two different directions. I didn't think it was possible to feel anything for anyone besides Zoey, yet my mind has proven me wrong once again. Not only was I feeling new things for a certain annoyingly perfect person, but that person was also another girl. Does this just confirm my gayness?

How does one confirm something like that?

The bell above the door rang,

"Welcome to Royalty subs where our subs make you feel like royalty," I said.

Hilary giggled and skipped over to me.

I wasn't prepared. Any other day I would have been just normal Poppy and would have been unfazed, this day after I had just had my sudden realization, well normal was out the window.

"Hilary!" I fumbled with the mayo jar, which was I was using to refill the mayo in the cold table.

It slipped out of my hands and splattered mayo all over me, the floor, and the counter. Hilary giggled as I quickly went to clean it and slipped in the mayo.

I giggled nervously as well.

"Well, well, well, look who's come to bother me yet again. I might have to start charging you entrance fees." Alvin teased.

Hilary stuck her tongue out at him and he laughed. I felt my jealousy spike and said,

"Could you stop messing around and get the mop." It came out snappier than I meant it too.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he grumbled and went to the back to get the mop.

"You got a little something," Hilary giggled before wiping some mayo off my forehead.

I laughed nervously and felt my cheeks heat up.

"So how's work?" she asked when I just stared at her in silence.

"D-ah um. Yeah. Works great." I nervously spat out.

"I'm glad," She smiled at me before leaning over the counter and kissing my cheek.

I jerked back and slipped in the mayo once more.

She laughed.

Alvin came back with the mop and helped me clean up the mess. Afterward, Hilary said,

"Go on your break, we can eat together."

I looked at Alvin and he just gave me the yeah whatever shrug. So I took my hat off and made me and Hilary a sandwich before grabbing us a drink and sitting in a booth with her. Technically employee discount was only half off but Alvin never cared that I ate for free.

He's cool like that.

"So I was working on the project this morning and got one whole wall finished. I took a picture." She said around a bite of sandwich and pulled out her phone to show me.

"I'm off again on Wednesday," I said.

"Great, I'll be working on it a little bit every day."

I smiled at her and I saw her cheeks flush. It made my own cheeks flush and I quickly looked down at my food.

"So," Hilary started.

I forced myself to meet her lavender eyes.

"The annual art show is coming up again, you going to enter in your work?" she asked.

"I don't know, probably." I shrugged and took a large bite of my sandwich.

"What's your piece going to be this year?"

"You trying to get ahead of me in the competition already?" I raised an eyebrow.

"No! I wasn't, I didn't mean to insinuate, what I mean is,"

"Kidding," I rolled my eyes.

She sighed in relief.

I shook my head and smiled at her.

Her cheeks flushed red and she shyly went back to eating.

"I haven't planned out my piece yet, might go for painting this year. I'm feeling sort of greyish. Maybe I'll do something greyscale. Whatever inspires me, I guess. I try not to plan too much ahead or I psych myself out and won't want to do it anymore."

"Oh wow, really? I always plan way in advance what I am going to do. Always doing multiple test sketches before I settle on something."

"Sounds like a lot of work."

"I just want to make sure I really like something before I spend hours making it. Don't want to wing it and find out I hate it."

"Meh, most of my best work comes from winging it. I just let my emotions do the talking."

"Spoken like a true artist."

I giggled as she flipped her hair and acted all posh for a moment.

She giggled too.

We ate in silence for a moment before she said,

"Even though we just barely, officially, met, I feel like we are already good friends."

I felt my stomach twist up.

Friends.

She thought we were real friends.

Yet I've been pretending this whole time.

"Yeah." I forced a smile.

"You are way better than most of my other friends. I just feel like I can be myself around you."

"Emm Hmm."

"You and I have similar interests, see things similarly, and even like the same things. I've never clicked with anyone so instantly as I've clicked with you."

Stop it! She's getting to me on purpose! Gah! Stop being so perfect.

"I know what you mean." I force myself to say.

She giggled.

I went back to nervously eating my food.

"So softball season is about to start and we have our first game coming up the next weekend. I'm going to be practicing all week after school. Maybe you could come to my game."

"Yeah, count on it."

She squealed in excitement and jumped around in her seat.

I just raised my eyebrow at her causing her to go beet red again.

After that we mostly just ate in silence, talking about a bunch of random things before we finished our lunch. Then she left to go work on the project some more. I just stared after her, my guts all twisty.

"Ah young love, I remember the feeling," Alvin said.

"What! I'm not in love with Hilary." I quickly denied.

"Yeah nice try, I'd know that love-struck gaze anywhere."

"You've got it all wrong!"

"You sure? You're turning red."

"Ugh! Just shut it. No, I can't like Hilary."

"And why not?" he asked as he began to restock the cold table with sandwich stuff.

"Because! Zoey likes Hilary."

"Wait you mean Zoey who is suddenly absent Zoey? Zoey who used to be my partner in crime when I was dating her sister Zoey?"

"Wait you dated Zoey's sister?"

"Duh, she's the ex I've been telling you about."

"Wait, the Ex! Alvin! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you knew, I thought Zoey told you."

"No way, Zoey hardly ever talks about her home life."

"That's because it's a nightmare I can't tell you how many times I wanted to go and kick her dad's a—"

He was interrupted by the store bell ringing.

"Welcome to Royalty subs!" we said in unison.

We quickly took the order and made the sandwich before resuming the conversation.

"I wonder why Zoey never told me about that," I said.

"It's not really something I would advertise either. Maybe you don't know her like you thought you did," he says.

I frown and let my shoulders sag.

"So Zoey likes Hilary, but you like her too?"

"I don't know, it's complicated."

"Well we have—" he paused to look at the time. "Three more hours until we clock out so I'm all ears." He leaned against the counter.

I sighed and then proceeded to tell him the whole story about how I liked Zoey, how I was a spy and a double agent. How Hilary is winning me over, how I'm still confused about my sexuality, everything. I didn't mean to unload on the guy but it felt good to get it off my chest. I mean I had to tell someone other than Wes.

"Whoa, sounds like a mess. Poppy when I gave you the crown of the Queen I didn't think you would let it go to your head so fast."

"Shut up this is serious. I don't know what to do if Zoey finds out that I'm even remotely interested in Hilary it's curtains for me okay. I'll be overthrown and you can say goodbye to the crown. She'll hate me forever. Not to mention all this stuff I didn't know about her home life, I just feel like a failure as a friend."

"Well, you sort of are."

"Alvin!"

"Look you want my advice, just do whatever you want. Do you like Hilary? Then go for it, screw Zoey. She's been a bitch to you for the past couple of weeks and it's not like you need her permission anyway. If anyone is a failure as a friend it's her. Homelife or not that's no excuse for being a bitch to you. You can't keep going through life looking for other people's permission to be happy. Fuck them all, you do what you want to do. If she is really your friend, she'll understand."

"You think so?"

"No," he snorted in amusement.

I frowned at him and hit him with the rag I was using to clean up the tables.

"What? just being honest, if someone stole the girl I loved I kick their—"

"Alvin! Not helping!"

"I'm just saying."

I rolled my eyes.

After that, we changed topics and Alvin once again began to talk about his ex, which I had no idea was Zoey's older sister. Which now that I think about it, makes a lot of sense. I've only met Zoey's sister a couple of times because the girl is always working. She has two jobs and goes to community college. She's only three years older than Zoey but she is always looking out for Zoey in a protective mom kind of way.

According to Zoey, Jacky, which is her sister's name, used to be a "bad" girl when she was in high school. Always getting into trouble and rebelling against everyone. So it makes sense that she would have dated Alvin the once-popular bad boy of the school. I can't believe I never figured this out on my own.

Sigh.

When I got off of work I climbed onto my bike and headed home. I was about halfway there when I ran over something and got a flat tire. I sighed and began to walk.

Zoey only lives a couple of streets over from me which is why she used to come over all the time, but now she is avoiding me like the plague. Which is what Zoey's do when they have a problem. Avoid it until it goes away. I don't know how many times I've told her that's not how life works.

"Poppy!" I heard Zoey call out to me as I was passing her street.

I paused in my steps and looked at her.

She was on her bike and riding closer to me.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey, did you just get off work or something?" she indicated to my uniform.

"Yeah, but I busted my tires on the ride back so now I'm walking." I sighed.

"That sucks."

"Emm." I hummed in agreement.

We just stared at each other awkwardly for a moment.

"Anyway, I'll be heading home if you want to come over." I turned to leave.

She was silent but I didn't want to wait to see if she would say anything so I just started walking again.

"Maybe another time," she said before riding away.

I felt the sting of rejection all over again. With a sigh, I walked the rest of the way home. When I got there I didn't have time to relax, instead, I had to change the tire on my bike which took me about half an hour considering I wasn't prepared and the only other time I changed a bike tire was my freshmen year in high school. So I was a little rusty.

After that, I went upstairs and took a shower and changed before going to my room to relax. I saw that I had several text messages, which was a rare thing for me. I don't really text that often, I prefer face to face or calling.

I opened them up and saw they were all from Hilary. She sent me pictures of her progress and then a selfie of herself making a silly face. I giggled and then took my own silly selfie and sent it to her.

Just thinking of her made me feel all tingly inside.

What is up with me?