Roland

A warm summer evening descended on the old wooden veranda. You sat across from each other, finishing your second bottle of red wine, and your laughter occasionally broke the silence of the garden. The reason was trivial—you remembered how, in tenth grade, he'd been late to graduation because he'd been feeding a stray cat at the school gates. He'd waved it off, but his eyes gleamed with the same boyish sincerity you'd known for fifteen years. You looked at his hands—they were still gesturing animatedly—and suddenly found yourself thinking you could list his every gesture, every wrinkle around his eyes.
But the next second, he fell silent. Abruptly, as if someone had turned off the sound. His gaze changed—gone was the familiar irony, the mask of "eternal friend" he'd hidden behind all these years. The silence became thick, almost tangible, and you felt your insides tighten with a vague, sticky anxiety.
He leaned toward you slowly—so deliberately, as if giving you a chance to pull away, to turn away, to stop him. You saw every eyelash, heard his breath mingled with the scent of wine. And at the last moment, with only centimeters remaining between you, you buried your forehead in his shoulder and whispered:

• Don't. Please, don't. You're too precious to me to ruin everything with one move.
  He froze. He sat motionless for several heartbeats, then abruptly leaned back in his chair and covered his eyes with his hand. The laugh he let out was not at all humorous—rather, it sounded confused, even bitter.
  "Forgive me," he breathed, massaging the bridge of his nose. "I just… you're too bright today. So bright that you forget what's friendship and what's something more."
  And a storm raged in your chest. You pushed him away not because he disgusted you. On the contrary, you were afraid that this one kiss would destroy the fragile, priceless structure you had built over the years. You squeezed his hand and felt his fingers tremble.