Okay, so this is the deal.
About a year ago, I fell in love with a guy.
It was the first time I fell in love. I didn’t believe in it, or want it, before that.
I still didn’t want it, considering the fact that I never think that he loved me back.
I don’t know why I loved him. It just faded out after several months, and now there’s not much left. We never really talk anymore, and that’s good.
But that doesn’t matter. This isn’t about him.
So I was alright for a while, didn’t fall in love again, or even crush hardly, for months and months. Until I met these two guys. Well I met one. I’ve known this other guy for years. We talked whenever we had the chance, and I always thought he was good looking. Green eyes, brown hair, same age as me; 15, almost 6 foot tall, a charming smile and an infectious laugh. Alex Netton. Net.
Then there was the other one. Blue eyes, black hair, 16 years old, almost 6 foot tall, a big grin and a booming laugh that you seemed to feel in your bones. Kieran Netley. Or Net for short. Both of them had the same nickname. I met the second in town, in a crowd of other people. We immediately noticed each other and he smiled at me and I smiled back and he grinned and I blushed and looked away and his friend introduced us a few minutes later. I ended up getting his name, his email address and his phone number. I saw him some weekends, and we talked on the computer every night. We stayed up texting each other until midnight some days, and when I wasn’t at school the next day, even longer then that. Normally I paid £10 a month for credit on my phone. After I met him, it went up to almost that amount a week.
Me and Net (Alex, not Kieran) that’s what I called him, too - didn’t really text each other, or see each other that much, but it could change, if we had reason to. And somewhere between the unorganized, unplanned meetings, I fell for him. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Here was the way my mind worked, how much I thought of certain things:
15% - Friends and family.
10% - School and homework.
5% - Food and sleep and miscellaneous.
70% - Alex.

Until Kieran. Then it went.
10% - Friends and family.
10% - School, food, miscellaneous.
40% - Alex.
40% - Kieran.

I’d gradually fallen in love with Alex. Over years of seeing each other a few times a week, somewhere in between flirtatious smiles and little, unimportant chats. And I’d fallen straight in love with Kieran, with no warning. It was just there, after all the midnight confessions and expensive phone bills.
For a month, I loved them both, and had no idea what to do. Because last week, Alex had told me that he loved me. And last night, well at 1am this morning, Kieran did too.

“Can I um, talk to you for a minute?” Alex asked me, his green eyes darting from my own eyes, to the floor.
“Sure,” I said, following him to a bench. I wasn’t exactly expecting anything out of the ordinary. Maybe a little, because he seemed nervous, and he never seemed nervous, but not what would follow.
“Okay, so. Umm… we’ve um, known each other a while and um-“
“If you say ‘umm’ once more I’ll have to hit you,” I grinned.
He laughed nervously, and then looked around for a few seconds, before taking my face in his hands and kissing my lips. It was gentle and soft and sweet, and one of his hands moved to the small of my back.
I pulled back for air, and because of shock, and his eyes were vibrant and he was smiling slightly. “Alex… wh…”
He just smiled again, and said a minute later. “I’ve liked you from day one, but as I’ve talked to you more and more, I’ve… kind of fell in love with you.”

And that’s how that went. He had to go after that, and I didn’t see him again until the week after. Kieran went on texting me like usual and those few days were even worse than the months before, when I’d loved them both and expected nothing back. I had to decide whether to pretend everything was normal, or tell him I’d kissed someone, someone else I loved too. I chose the first. Because I still loved him, and couldn’t decide which one I like most. At the weekend, I saw Kieran, and I had decided to tell him all about Alex and about us kissing. But I forgot when I saw his eyes, and his smile. We went to the cinema with a few other friends, and he sat next to me. I had my arm on the armrest, and when some of our friends were watching the film too intently to notice, and some were making out with each other, he put his hand on mine and squeezed it. I looked over at him, and he looked back at me, and whispered something. I couldn’t hear it over explosions and screams from the screen in front of us, but I was fairly certain what he said. He smiled and looked back to the screen, as did I after a minute. For the rest of the film I was silent and didn’t pay attention to anything in the room with us. I was thinking too much.
When we got outside, it was raining heavily and I hadn’t bought a jacket. Some people went home straight away, others were talking. I looked around, shielding my hair and face from the rain with my arms, when I felt someone put their sleeves onto them. Kieran stood in front of me and zipped his black jumper up on me, and then he did something I didn’t want to happen. If it had happened a week earlier, I would have been perfectly happy with it. But not now, not with all this sudden confusion.
He slid his hands around my waist and kissed me, strongly and confidently and with an intensity that left me breathless even as he winked and said, so calmly, not knowing what it was doing to me, “bye,” and jogged off to catch his bus.
I did nothing for the rest of the weekend, not knowing what to do. I see Alex some weekdays, and Kieran most weekends. There was no telling if I’d even see Alex this week – some weeks, I didn’t., so why would this be so different? Apart from we’d kissed. As had me and Kieran. God! I’m not like this … I don’t just kiss any guy. But then again these weren’t just any guys; I was in love with them! Both of them.
I went to bed early. Sometimes people say sleep on it, and you’ll know what you need to do. So that’s what I did. I heard a buzz, my phone telling me I had a text, somewhere between consciousness and sleep, and I knew it could only be one person. So I ignored it. He couldn’t sway me, not tonight. But I was still holding his jacket.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said the next day, when Net picked up the phone. “Can I talk to you? Tonight?”
“Um, sure. Where you wanna meet?”
“Um… the cinemas, at 6.”
“Okay. See you then.”

That Sunday night, it was raining again. My hair was plastered down to my skull and I could see my mascara-streaked reflection in the window of a restaurant. I also saw in the reflection, the person I’d been waiting for. Net walked towards me, a smile already on his face. “Hi,” he yelled, over the sound of rain pouring down around us, hitting puddles it had already made, and over the sound of thunder that cracked through the sky just as I saw him. “Hi,” I yelled back, my face forming a genuine smile even though I was shivering with the cold.
“Don’t you wanna go inside somewhere?” he asked, laughing at my trembling.
I shook my head, trying not to attract even more rain into my mouth. But I needed to get thus conversation out. “I… I just wanted to talk to you. About what you told me, about… about how you feel about me.”
His face slowly turned disappointed, and he looked down at his shoes as he kicked them against the building. “Right. God. Why did I ruin everything like that? I should of known-“
“Net, I love you too.”
He looked up at me, and gulped down the shock, asking, “What?”
“I love you too,” I whispered, not quite sure that he heard me over the thunder that just tore through the clouds. But then I knew he had. He took my face in his hands suddenly, and pushed his lips to mine. He tasted sweet and smelled amazing, just like he had before. And because I wanted it this time – no, Id always wanted it – because I wasn’t so shocked this time, I kissed him back.
I love you Net.
Always have, always will.