Almost Fiction #1

Last year, I started writing down some stories with the hope of getting certain episodes out of my head. Maybe if I wrote them down, they wouldn't haunt me so much. This is one story that came out better than I anticipated. One of my goals is to eventually write a novel. So we'll call this practice, for now.

Nason

I loved talking on the phone in high school. I could do it for hours. Yet, somehow when I was on the phone with my boyfriend, I couldn’t wait to hang up. He was my first serious boyfriend, the first guy to tell me without hesitation that he whole-heartedly loved me. I had even fallen asleep on the phone with him once, and strangely he stayed on the line for an hour, listening to me breathe before he finally disconnected. I was only 15, and took it as flattery.

One afternoon, I was again in the middle of another pointless, one-side conversation, when there was a knock…at the window. There he was, traipsing in my front hedge. 

Nason’s cousin lived in my subdivision, and he managed to find out where I lived quite easily.

            “Come out here. Let’s talk.”

            There it was, my reason to hang up the phone.

            “Who were you on the phone with?” he asked.

            “Jeremy.”

            “You should break up with that guy. I don’t like him.”

Hmmm, I don’t remember ever asking his opinion, or if he even knew who I was dating at all. It seemed like a selfish request.

            “Then who should I be dating?” I asked back.

            “Just not him.”

            “Aren’t you still dating Lauren?”

            “Yeah.”

            “So why do you care?”

I wanted him to say it. I wanted him to say, “I like you. I’d rather be with you. I have no clue why I’m with a snotty blonde chick who is nothing like you.” He couldn’t back his way out of this request.

            He said nothing and left my house five minutes later. I was still confused at to what his endgame was, and why he decided to climb through a bush to fail at it.

Senior year and I have no clue why I’m calling him. Curiosity, maybe.  I hadn’t decided where to go to college yet, and I had called a handful of Florida friends to see where they might be going. I could handle college, but it’d be nice to know someone, anyone who’d be there with me.

            He actually answered. After about five minutes of shit-talking about people, we finally got around to the subject.

            “I’m definitely going to UF. You?”

            “I applied, but I really want to go to Miami.” I said.

            “You’re not going to Miami.”

            Really? After all this time, he still has that tone. I can’t tell if he is generally interested, or just condescending.

            “Look, you’d probably be able to get into UF. And I know I’m definitely going to UF. So if we both go to UF, we’ll date.”

            Strangely, I was intrigued. Was he harboring these feelings the whole time, or did he actually think I wouldn’t get into UF? I was a bit insulted that he’d underestimate me, but there was still a huge WTF factor that was still unexplained.

            

I haven’t seen him in three years, yet I agreed to meet up with him tonight as he somehow managed to find his way back into the center of my atmosphere. I didn’t know he was even in Gainesville, let alone a student. He didn’t get accepted into UF initially. I’d heard from our mutual friend that he’d spent a year at a college in south Florida, then later transferred to UF that past summer.

            The 15-year-old me and the 19-year-old me were at odds. Do we still like him? Is he still going to be an ass? Is he still going to smell really good? Apparently, after I’d found him on Facebook, we had other new mutual friends, and somehow he’d already met the guy I was currently seeing. From an afterthought, to suddenly in the middle of everything. Coincidence?

            We met after dinner at a coffee shop. We’d start talking about new friends, old friends, how much he hated our mutual friend Dan, the falling out they’d had. He didn’t know that Dan and I kept close since being at UF, and I had already heard a much different story previously. I chalked everything up to hearsay and just went on nodding.

            “Do you think Angela would go out with me?”

WTF? Did he really just ask me that? I didn’t know Angela too well, but she was dating someone. “No, that’s probably not a good idea.”

            “How would you know? She’s not happy and neither are you.”

Again, WTF? Where is this coming from?

            “What are you talking about? I’m seeing someone, and it’s perfectly fine.” I knew it wasn’t the entire truth. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the relationship, but I wasn’t going around, planning to end it.

            “Look, Eugene’s a nice guy, but he’s not ever going to be for you. You’re his type, but he could never be your type.”

            “And what is my type, exactly?”

Awkward.  I could see it in his face that he did not expect such opposition. No, he didn’t know me. He never knew me. That unfortunately would not be the last time someone told me that I was unhappy.

The next week, he’d stopped talking to Eugene and Angela, he de-friended me on Facebook and I never heard from him again. Two years later, at a Senior Year semi-formal, I saw him having dinner downtown with his soon-to-be wife. My roommate and I were in cocktail dresses and high heels, having gelato before the event, when I spotted them. We walked past and I said hello, feeling like I’d just slapped him in the face. Yes, I’m hot. Yes, you missed out. Never underestimate me again.