Day 8 – This morning, somewhere near 4 am, Ruben whispered, I love you, to me. I mumbled it back, not wanting to seem cold hearted but more than anything, it had been too long since he was giving that kind of thing away and I just didn’t really no what game he was playing but I didn’t want any part of it. I can’t afford heartbreak again and until he and I get a chance to sit down and really talk about what’s going on with us since the huge blow out Sunday night, I don’t want to get any sort of my hopes up.
I stumbled out of bed around 5am and got ready for the day. I actually took a few moments to read a gossip magazine and sip some water before crawling back into bed around 5:45 and shutting my eyes for a bit. Ruben rubbed my back and asked for the time. I told him it wasn’t even six yet and we both just laid there and rested until the coughing in Lexi’s room was too much to ignore. I got up, brought her to my bed, and then found her some tights and a dress to wear to school and the morning quickly fell into the routine rushing around.
I got to work and hit the ground running. I had a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time. I buried myself in accounting and ignored the memories of Jesse. This is a particularly difficult task when my relationship with Jesse started in a math class. We met my freshman year of high school. He was a junior, sitting in the back of the class, wanting to disappear and just pass. I was a freshman, hanging out in the middle, passing notes with my best friend and rolling my eyes at the incompetent teacher up front. I noticed him first. I thought he was hot and started sitting just in front of him. Then, during breaks in the action, I would ask to borrow his eraser or ask how his day was going. After a while, he was comfortable enough to jump into conversations with my friend and I and then, I started passing him notes. I learned that he had a huge crush on a girl named Monica and that he was really trying to win her over. I remember going to a football game, seeing him sitting by her, and though I wanted to strike up a conversation and sit next to him, I didn’t want to run interference on any moves he was trying to make. I caught up with a guy I was casually dating, and we skipped out on the game and headed down to get some snacks from the store. As we were walking out, Jesse walked in. I remember taking a huge side step from him as I didn’t want Jesse to think the other guy and I were together.
The next Monday in class, he wrote me a note, wondering who it was I was seeing and what the deal was. It wasn’t long after that when things started to warm up. Another girl had a crush on the guy I was dating and she attacked me at my locker. She punched me, over and over and I just stood there and let it happen. When word got around to Jesse he refused to let me walk the halls alone and started escorting me to every class and then, he wrote the note that changed everything. Midway through a mundane conversation about random happenings at school, Jesse asked me to be his girlfriend. At first, I questioned if I was just a second pick since things were going no where with Monica but he said it had nothing to do with Monica and I agreed to be an item. We joked later that when we were married we would frame the note and hang it on a wall and tell our grandkids about it. But the pencil lines have no doubt faded, as did our relationship.
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