Saturday

Alex walked into the crowded restaurant and scanned the occupied tables. He immediately spotted the shock of red hair and proceeded to wind his way through the bustling waiters with trays of food and customers being seated. There she was, just like every Saturday morning, settled in the booth sipping her coffee.

Jenna looked up excitedly from her coffee to see her best friend heading towards her. You couldn't miss him; with his tall, lanky frame he was hard to lose in a crowd. She smiled as he slid his long body onto the bench seat across from her, just as he had done every Saturday morning for the last four years.

"Did you order for me?" Alex settled himself after awkwardly situating his long legs underneath the squat table.

Jenna nodded before sipping her coffee again, "I did--three eggs, scrambled, with a side of bacon, a short stack of pancakes, toast, and grits instead of hash browns."

"Nice."

"I should know what you like after all these years."

"You're right, you should. You'd think Marie would know by now she still doesn't."

"You're kidding, it's been over two years!"

"I know, but she doesn't remember things like you."

"Well, Marie isn't the same as I am."

"Ain't that the truth," Alex snorted scornfully.

Jenna sipper he coffee again as the waitress brought over another cup along with cream and sugar. She sat with her mind deep in thought as she watched him mix his three packets of sugar and two creams into the dark liquid. This Saturday was starting off like every other Saturday, but she knew that this one would every very differently.

"This place has the best crappy coffee ever," Alex sighed after taking a long drink from the tacky ceramic mug.

"Why else would we come here?" Jenna smiled and thanked the waitress as she set their food before them.

"So, what new has happened in the last day or so?" He asked jovially, pouring syrup over his pancakes.

"You mean since we talked last?" She unwrapped her silverware from the paper napkin.

"Yeah since then," he drawled in his thick Southern accent before shoving a forkful of pancake in his mouth. Jenna loved that accent, noticing with some disappointment that it was beginning to get a hint of Seattle in it.

"Ryan asked me to marry him," she responded flatly.

"Oh yeah?" Alex raised his eyebrows, swallowing the pancake and taking a sip from his mug. "You said yes, right?"

"I told him I couldn't marry him." Jenna looked down at her plate of untouched food as her eyes filled with tears.

"Hey, don't start that, " he soothed, reaching across the table and squeezing Jenna's hand. "I'm sure you had a good reason."

"I do," she sniffed, "it's the same reason I told Jack I couldn't marry him. I just wasn't in love with him--either of them--and nothing was going to change that. You know how much I hate to hurt people's feelings. You should have seen Ryan's face when I told him no; he was crushed!"

"You can't force yourself to love someone," Alex began knowingly, returning to his breakfast. "You'll find someone eventually.'

"You say that every time I go through this." Jenna attempted a sad smile, thankful for the support of the best friend she'd ever had.

"Well, it's true. You're smart, pretty, and you're really fun to go out with."

"You mean that?"

"Of course I do, you're terrific. Do you remember that time you snuck out of that lame-ass ballet Ryan dragged you to just so we could go catch the Evil Dead trilogy up at the multi-plex?"

"Yeah, that was great. One of the most fun nights of my life."

Alex looked thoughtful for a moment. "Okay, so let me rephrase that: you're fun to go out with as far as I'm concerned, maybe not so much fun for Ryan."

"Yeah." Jenna chuckled at the memory of her sitting in the movie theater in her evening wear and Alex in his Helmet t-shirt and jeans. She could still remember the standing ovation the crowd gave to Bruce Campbell after slaying the Deadites.

Alex noticed she still didn't seem like the happy-go-lucky woman he'd know for these last four years, so he decided to give it another try. "Remember the night we crashed Ryan's parents' Christmas party?"

"Oh no! Please don't bring that night up again!"

"Why? I thought you enjoyed our little fruitcake fight."

"I don't think Marie enjoyed it that much."

"I should think not. You nailed her full in the face with a cupful of eggnog," Alex accused in a teasing tone.

"You ducked!" Jenna cried.

"That night was great, up until Marie got hit."

"Yeah, we always had fun whenever she and Ryan were off somewhere else. They always seemed to put a damper on things."

"Hell, Marie still does," Alex grumbled, biting into a sausage link.

Jenna saw the sullen expression on his face and her heart immediately broke. She hated the thought of her best friend marrying that woman and she felt the threatening sting of tears.

"Hey, you alright?" he asked, looking at her with deep concern.

"Oh, Alex!" Jenna moaned, tears welling up in her light indigo eyes, "I have to tell you something and it's so hard. Please don't interrupt me or I'll never get it out."

"Okay." A wary expression settling on his normally happy face.

She took a deep breath to try and steady her nerves as she looked down at her lap. This was it, this moment would change their Saturday routine and every Saturday after that. She took one more deep breath and then blurted: " I think I'm in love with you."

Alex stiffened and Jenna knew it without having to look up at him. He'd been her best friend for four years and she knew that freezing up had been his reaction to every other girl's admission of love in the past. Since neither one of them was saying anything, Jenna decided to continue.

"After a lot of thinking I realized that this is why I couldn't marry Jack and why I turned Ryan down. it wouldn't have been fair to either of them to marry a woman who didn't love them." Finally Jenna looked up to see Alex staring blankly at her, "You don't have to say anything to me; in fact, I wasn't expecting you to say much at all, and I know you're not really able to tell me anything in return except that you're supposed to marry Marie next month."

"Yeah, that right there," Alex finally said, running a shaky hand through his mink-colored hair.

"I am so sorry to do this to you," Jenna whispered, gazing into Alex's deep brown eyes as her own began to fill again.

"Look, it's nothing," he shrugged, going for a casual jerk of the shoulder and instead looking like he had a horrible twitch.

Jenna's heart dropped into her stomach, a crushed look formed upon her flushed face. he blue eyes brimmed with tears that finally spilled down her smooth cheeks. She looks like a small child whose puppy had just been run over and Alex could only look back at her apologetically.

"I gotta go," she whispered, her voice breaking as she threw a $20 bill on the table and ran out of the local greasy spoon.

"Jenna, wait!" Alex called after her, following her out of the restaurant and onto Meridian Avenue.

"What?" she snapped, pounding the pedestrians' button to change the crossing signal.

"I don't know what to do, I mean, what do you want me to say?" he asked, attempting a conversation with her.

"Not a god damn thing, just leave me alone!" She pounded the button again, trying to retain some of the dignity she lost back at that booth.

"Would you just wait a minute--" Alex began and quickly jumped back when she turned on him.

"You wait just a damn minute," she seethed, stepping towards him and jabbing a short, stubby finger into his chest. "I tell you I'm in love with you and you shrug it off and tell me it's nothing. To hell with the fact that I'm supposed to be your best friend and that this is going to change everything!"

"What do you want from me?" he yelled back, matching the volume of Jenna's raised voice.

"I wanted to tell you this in hopes that maybe, just maybe, we could have given this a chance."

Jenna, I--"

"I know, you can't because of Marie, but now I don't care. I'll just learn to live with the disappointment!"

She stepped off the curb to cross at the green signal when Alex followed close at hand. This wasn't going the way she had hoped, he thought to himself. Why did she have to go and complicate things? His life was going along just fine until she dropped this in his lap. They reached the other side of the street, Alex huffing after Jenna, her fiery hair bouncing with every step. She stopped suddenly and spun back to Alex, her blue eyes blazing with all of the fury and hurt of a woman scorned.

"And one more thing," she snipped, straightening herself to stand as tall as her short frame would allow, "I don't think I'll be attending your wedding."

"Jenna, please, I need you--"

"No, let me finish; I don't think I could watch you marry that shrew of a woman. Truth be told, I absolutely loathe her. But despite that fact, I supported you when you proposed to her even though she hates my guts; I allow you to cancel plans with me to keep her from being angry and I try to ignore the jealous little snipes she makes about me. She makes you treat me like crap, but have you ever heard me complain up until today?"

"If all of this is as bad as you're making it sound, then why do you put up with it?" he implored, grabbing Jenna's shoulders and forcing her to look at him. He knew what her answer would be before she ever said it, just by the way her eyes had become a soft blue.

"I want you to look at me when you tell me; not at your hands or while you're jamming a finger into my chest, but directly at me."

Jenna raised her eyes to look Alex square in the face. She wasn't going to shy away from him and she wasn't going to cry. This time she would make sure that when she said it, nothing would impede her: no tears, no anger.

"I put up with it because you're my best friend and because I love you."

They stood there facing each other in the middle of the sidewalk, neither of them saying anything. Finally Alex wrapped his arms around his best friend and completely enveloped her. Jenna wept as she club to the front of his navy blue sweatshirt, the strength of his embrace warming her. He held her close and gently stroked her hair. She could feel him rest his cheek on the top of her head and Jenna let out a contented sigh. This was what she was hoping for and to her it felt right.

"Did you really mean what you said?"

Jenna looked up to see the serious expression that was fixed on his face. "Of course, and I meant every damn word of it, too."

"Even when you said you hated Marie?"

"Definitely that."

"Even when you said you were in love with me?"

"I meant that most of all," she replied as she slid her arms around his waist. "It wasn't Jack who picked me up from the oral surgeon's office after I had my wisdom teeth pulled, it was you. Ryan didn't go with me when I bought my new car because he said he was too busy, but you came with me without hesitation."

"I just wanted to keep you from getting ripped off."

"But you've been the one person who has always been there for me. I mean, you've come over to take care of me when I was sick and you even stayed the night with me when I kept getting those creepy phone calls."

"Well, I care about you and I wanted to make sure you were safe," Alex murmured against her hair.

"My hero." Jenna chuckled softly against his chest. She inhaled deeply and sighed. She smelled the cologne she'd given him for his birthday on his shirt and it warmed her heart.

"Come on, let's get out of here." Alex pulled away, keeping one arm around her waist.

"Where are we going?" she sniffed, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

"Some place where we can talk," he replied, leading her towards the park, "when I say talk I mean talk. We take turns speaking and no yelling."

Jenna smiled; she knew where he was taking her. He was taking her to Gasworks Park, the place where they first met. The place where she fell in love, and unbeknownst to her, he had, too.