It's Not What It Looks Like

ᴛᴡᴏ | ᴡʜᴇɴ ꜱɪʟᴇɴᴀ ᴍᴇᴛ ᴍᴇɴᴀ

‧̍̊˙· 𓆝.° ｡˚𓆛˚｡ °.𓆞 ·˙‧̍̊

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐮𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐚 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐬𝐲 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐬.

Still, no matter what Emilia or Jonah might try to tell you, she is not at all allergic to romance as a whole. Although she has never understood the drama built around it, Silena hardly minds the concept itself. 

If anything, she feels as though the drama only takes away from the simple ardentness inherent to true love. 

As far as she's concerned, the more intimately one expressess their feelings, the more intensely those same feelings tend to grow. How is cutting up fruit for someone not more romantic than hiring an airplane to write your lover's name in the sky? Or, you know, whatever other bullshit the romcom writer of the hour has decided to include in their script. To Silena, public declarations of love are a sign of a surface deep affection at best, and if saying that means that she's allergic to romance, then so be it. She's in no hurry to find the antidote.

Besides, she doubts that Jonah himself genuinely likes those movies. At least, not as much as he sometimes makes it seem. 

Silena would bet real money that he only ever went with whatever Emilia would pick during movie nights because he enjoys inconveniencing her in every way humanly possible.

And sometimes (like at the end of the last semester, when their most recent breakup took place) he even goes beyond what's humanly possible, because he's just that thoughtful.

Well... Alright. 

Here goes a moment of honesty.

Despite the fact that Jonah has also had his less than stellar moments, Silena is very well aware of the fact that most of their breakups were, to tell the complete and uncensored truth, ultimately her fault.

And that isn't something that she often admits.

Primarily, of course, because most things aren't her fault- but she digresses.

It's a well-known fact that the two of them have been breaking and making up ever since they were fourteen years old. Sometimes, Silena dreads just how much of a well-known fact it is. How much of well known fact it has been since the day she first broke up with him, back when she still owned a Hello Kitty wallet.

But way before all of that drama- before all the insecurities and mistrust- he had been her very best friend.

They've known each other since kindergarten; and when he had been sad to stay there without his mom, Silena was the one to comfort him. In middle school, as Silena became more closed off, the well-liked, charming Jonah had kept her under his wing. He'd always save her a seat on the bus, and she'd always give him the last of her favourite cookies. In the afternoons, she helped him out with the English homework, and he taught her how to dribble. 

Even then, tripping over the basketball, she'd sometimes catch him staring at her funny. But as long as he kept on being her best friend, she didn't mind if he tried to hold her hand.

Jonah was (and maybe, in some sense, still is) her most favourite person.

So when high school came around, and everyone kept pestering Silena about crushes and boys and crushes on boys, and asking when she was going to get a boyfriend, the answer seemed all too obvious. After all, she already had the sweetest, most handsome boy in the entire school at her beck and call.