Thinking Out Loud: A Romantic Comedy, page 18
“Mr. Connors, how are you this morning?” Benny says, his hand still resting on my neck and shoulder, unbothered that a student is witnessing him touch me. Like it doesn’t matter to him if anyone sees us together.
The urge to jump out of the chair and put ten feet between Benny and myself takes over as I abruptly stand up. “Garrett, you ready?” I ask, gathering my stuff together and throwing it in my bag. Benny bends down to pick up the sticky note pad I dropped. Without even thinking, I rush past him, disregarding the pad and his gentle touch goodbye and race into the hallway, Garrett hobling on his crutches, closely behind.
“Damn, this ain’t a marathon, slow down,” Garrett calls behind me as I weave in and out of students standing and gabbing in the hall.
“Come on, we’re on a time crunch!” I rush into my office and throw my things down, powering up my computer. I chug my coffee and start rapidly pulling out different applications and forms to go over with Garrett as the adrenaline courses through my veins. Unsure if it’s the excitement I have for the plan I’ve developed for Garrett, or the guilt from running away from Benny fueling it.
Garrett wobbles in, setting his crutches against the wall as he sits across from me. “Dude, you pretty much abandoned a puppy just now.”
Deciding to ignore the hurt that was most definitely etched across Benny’s face when I ran past him, I clasp my hands together under my desk. “That was not my intention,” I respond, feeling a slight tremble in my voice. I clear my throat, gathering my thoughts and turn my focus to Garrett.
“Well you could have at least kissed the guy bye if you—”
“This is not the time.”
“I’m just saying, he really likes you. You can tell—”
“Mr. Connors,” I snap at him, causing his eyes to widen and shoulders deflate, irritation swelling in my chest. “This is not an appropriate conversation.”
“My bad.” His face changes from amused to cautious as he looks away from me to watch the other students walking by, the silence in my little office extremely loud.
“Now, let’s talk about your application. Did you talk to your parents?”
Still not looking at me he says, “I did. They think it’s a good plan.”
“Do you think it’s a good plan?”
He looks down at his hands. “I don’t know, maybe.”
The silence continues and I can tell he feels embarrassed by his comment that he’s resisting carrying on this important discussion. I clasp my hands tighter, fighting back my intrusive thoughts to snap at him to grow up, and take a deep breath.
“Garrett,” I whisper. His head is still hanging, but he looks up at me through his eyelashes, a pout peaking through. I roll my eyes. “Fine. You get thirty seconds.”
“What?” he asks, confused, one eyebrow lifted higher than the other.
“You get thirty seconds to speak your mind about Mr. Divata and myself. Nothing grotesque or obscene, and I will not answer any questions. Got it?”
Garrett sits up straighter, leaning forward as if he is setting up for a sprint. Groaning, I point to the clock indicating the time and wave my hand presenting him the metaphorical stage.
“Alright, this guy is so into you. We haven’t seen him date anyone since some girl named Penny or something like three years ago, and she was weird.” His voice picks up—he's clearly overly excited to be dishing this out. “The whole senior class wants you guys to go to homecoming and prom together, and they wanna crown you guys. Obviously won’t happen if Birdie has anything to do with it, but it would be tight to see. And the guy is a saint, literally sent from the universe to protect us.” A lump in my throat forms as Garrett goes on and on about Benny and what he does for all of them. “You know he stayed at the hospital with me for five hours after my surgery because my parents had work? And he took Charlie to Texas for baseball tryouts because no one would take him?” He stopped abruptly, looking at the clock.
Thirty seconds.
A moment of silence passes before Garrett whispers, “He’s my hero.” His voice is vulnerable and timid, like I would make fun of him for what he just shared.
I wait for him to go on, selfishly because I want to know everything about Benny and hear all of the amazing things he does for these kids. But also because I sense Garrett needs to get something off his chest.
“He’s the only one who truly believed in me.” He sniffles. “Outside of football, Mr. B is the only one who thought I could still get into college after my knee. He has full faith I can pull it around. My parents just laugh at me when I tell them I still want to go.” He pauses, looking through the window at the empty hall. The students have all made it to class, with a few stragglers shutting lockers and high tailing it before they’re tardy.
“Why do you think they laugh?” I ask, knowing full well the answer. Benny shared about Garrett’s parents. About how Garrett is the youngest of five and not a single one of them has gone on to college. Garrett’s dad is a warehouse manager and his mom is a librarian. Both respective jobs in their own right, but the aspect of college was never financially doable for his siblings. Football was the only way in their minds, any other avenue wasn’t plausible.
He shrugs at me, refusing to acknowledge that we are probably thinking the same thing.
“What do you say we prove them wrong?” I ask.
“How so?”
“Well, I spoke with Coach Dawson at Central State and he’s agreed to give our plan a shot.”
“Seriously?” Garretts eyes are big and puppy-like, disbelief washing across his face.
“Seriously.” I smile at him. “Contingent on you maintaining a B average in your final course load, and you have to meet requirements at training camp next month.”
“My knee though.” He grimaces as he repositions his boot and bandage-covered leg.
I walk around from my desk to hand him a list of training requirements. “They have scaled their expectations.” He takes the list from me, reading the list carefully. “If you meet those and follow doctor’s orders for recovery to get medical clearance, you’ll be able to join as their second string for next fall.”
The pride wells up inside me as I wait for Garrett to respond. This plan took more energy than calling about rehab placement for my frequent flyers. Calling my connections at Central State, multiple meetings with the coaches and Dean, advocating for Garrett, Benny writing a recommendation letter. He was the last student on my list of crises, and by far the most complex. The challenge of solving it was fun, but the burdening reality that it might not work out was emotionally taxing. I’d grown to adore Garrett and his quirks, his heart for others so open and accepting. I put all of his eggs in this Central State basket, not knowing if he would even be open to the idea of playing second string, let alone at a non-conference college.
It was a long shot, but I was proud of the plan and the accomplishment of orchestrating it all. Even Benny told me Patsy couldn’t have come up with the idea. Which is definitely not true, but I appreciated his accolades nonetheless.
My nerves started to take over as Garrett remained silent. Watching as he slowly crinkled the paper and placed his head in his hands, shoulders moving up and down slightly. He was crying.
I let out a slow breath. “I’m sorry if this isn’t what you had hoped for. I called a few other schools to see but—”
My sentence is cut off by a bear hug. Garrett had leapt from his chair, towering over me, and squeezing me around my shoulders as he sobs. Weepy “thank you’s” billowing out of him like uncontrollable waves.
With my arms pinned to my sides, I awkwardly twist to pat him on the side of the arm. “Just doing my job.”
“Thank you for believing in me,” he whispers as he squeezes tight once more before letting go to look at me, his cheeks wet from his happy tears. His happiness was palpable.
With my shoulders slightly aching, I gingerly fist bump him before he crutches out of my office.
“Could you put that thing away and help me carry these?” Emma was carrying three large, burlap sacks full of potatoes.
I had been the worst grocery store buddy the last hour, constantly pulling out my phone to muster the courage to text Benny. I hadn’t heard from him all day and was more than convinced it had something to do with my erratic exit from the break room this morning. I tried to find him as soon as my session with Garrett was over. He deserved a face-to-face apology for my behavior, but his office was dark and was nowhere to be found in the building.
Shoving my phone in my pocket, I take a bag of potatoes and hoist it into the shopping cart. “What else do we need?”
“Got the marshmallows!” Kate shouts as she rushes down the produce aisle towards us. “I got minis and extra-large, there was no in-between.”
“It’ll have to do,” Emma says, eyeing the marshmallows, clearly making mental adjustments to whatever recipe they were being used for.
“Great! Do we have everything?” I ask, steering the cart towards the direction Kate just ran from, Kate walking beside me as she tears coupons from the Glendale fundraiser coupon book.
“I have a coupon for a BOGO bag of popcorn balls, did we get that?” she asks, tearing the coupon to show me the savings.
“Ugh, I could kill for a popcorn ball!” I laugh.
“Same! I’m starving!”
Kate and I turn down the snack aisle, leaving Emma behind to tally up her list. We each mosey along, dropping different bags of candy, chips, and crackers into the cart. Disobeying Emma’s store rule of sticking to the list.
My stomach growls loudly as I toss in a bag of Skittles. “Why are we here when we’re hungry?”
“Rookie mistake.” Kate groans as she holds up two different bags of flavored pretzels, debating on which to purchase before she ultimately decides both are good options and tosses them in the cart. “So, this morning was interesting.”
“What was?” I wheel the cart ahead of her to avoid eye contact. It was only a matter of time before she brought it up.
“You know what!” She hurries to catch up to me. “He was practically scooping you up into his lap in the middle of our meeting!”
“That’s an exaggeration.” I roll my eyes.
“For Benny though, that was major PDA!”
“Really? I didn’t even notice.” Lies.
“Really! He is anti-physical touch in public. He barely even hugs me unless I’m crying or just having a freak out.” She pouts.
“He just leaned against my chair, what’s so crazy about that?” I ask as if I am painfully unaware of my surroundings and the facts are not computing. My voice is an octave higher than it should be.
She steps in front of the rolling cart, forcing me into a sudden stop. Glaring at me, she says, “Did something happen?”
“What? Nothing . . . nothing happened.” I start panicking, she’ll read right through me. “I don’t know. Why are you asking me?” I wheel the cart around her and try to pick up speed, but she’s right on my heels.
“Ahh, no you don’t!” Running past me, she plants her feet on the bottom rail of the cart like little kids do when they want to be wheeled around the store. She leans across the basket, eye level with me. “Tell. Me. Everything.”
The memory of our kiss rushes back to me, causing every sensation in my body to go into overdrive, pulsating down my legs, into the floor, and back up again. God, such a good kiss.
In normal circumstances, I am a steel trap, keeping every secret detail about my life tightly closed within the walls around my heart and mind, nothing breaking through.
I’m not sure if it’s Kate’s hilarious attempt at intimidating eyes, the oversensory of her tapping foot, or the giddy butterflies in my stomach . . . but I can’t keep it any more. The steel trap is opening and a lovestruck teenager is about to burst through…
“Fine! We . . . kissed . . .” I whisper-squeal.
“What?” Kate yells, planting her hands on both sides of her face in shock.
Then, as if we were just told we won the lottery, we start screaming, laughing, and jumping up and down right there in front of the Doritos.
“What? What’s wrong?” Emma comes rushing towards our shrieks.
“They kissed!” Kate announces to Emma and basically the entire store.
“Who? What? Oh my gosh!” Emma joins in our weird circle of giggles and nudges, hugging me so tight I feel I might crack in two. “This is so exciting! Our plan worked!”
Pushing out of her hug I stare at her. “Your what?”
“Yeah, what?” Kate asks, equally confused.
“Oh it was just a silly idea Steven had.” She shrugs as if that tells us the entire story. We both look at her expectantly, she chuckles at our impatience and continues. “I had just told Steven I noticed some looks between you two here and there. He told me about Benny hitting his car—”
“Ben hit someone’s car?!” Kate gasps.
“It was an accident!” I jump to defend him.
“Yes, yes, he hit the car. Accident, whatever happened.” Emma waves off the details, “Steven told me we should set them up, I knew you would never go for it. So he invited him to dinner in place of paying for the damage, it was the perfect excuse.” She grins at me, “I was afraid we ruined it when the wine hit and I couldn’t shut up. Stupid Merlot.”
“Wow.” I gape at her, shocked at her sneakiness, and the fact that I didn’t catch on. Emma has never been one to be sly or keep a secret, and Steven has never been one to be in cahoots with anything, let alone my love life. The length the two of them went to for me was sweet, and it almost made up for them being the tipsy loud mouths they were.
“Sorry about that by the way,” she says sincerely, interlocking her arm with mine.
“All is forgiven.” I smile.
“So you guys are official now?” Kate asks, bouncing up and down as we head towards the check out line.
“I guess? We haven’t officially labeled it though.” I wheel the cart to the cashier—a student they call Tiny Tim and he is anything but. He is a very large, dark-complected teenager who has a beard almost as good as Malcolm’s. It’s a mystery if he really is seventeen or if he’s just repeated his senior year a few times.
“Hi Tim, how are you?” I ask, setting the groceries on the conveyor belt.
Tim grunts as he scans our groceries and smashes them into plastic sacks. Kate clears her throat and sets two large, reusable sacks near the register, gesturing for him to use those instead of plastic. He grunts again, taking the already packed plastic bags and placing them entirely in the reusables. Kate looks at me visibly irritated, and groans, accepting the bags as Tiny Tim slides them to her without looking up from the scanner.
“You can’t just kiss someone and not expect there to be an official label,” Emma says, perusing the gum selection near the register.
“I know, I just assumed we would talk about it by now.” I grab a large packet of spearmint gum, Benny’s favorite, and toss it with the rest of the groceries.
“What haven’t you?”
“Haven’t had time. And I think I upset him.”
“Impossible, he’s too smitten. You could never do anything wrong,” Kate says at the end of the check out line, reorganizing the groceries to return the plastic bags back to Tiny Tim.
“Oh I’m sure I could,” I say, thinking back to the pitiful look on his face as I pushed his hand away this morning. Shame and guilt hit me down to the bone over being the source of hurt he must have felt. My mind quickly turns to panic and worry that he could be mad at me. “He hasn’t texted me at all today,” I say, urgently. “Garrett Connors saw us in the breakroom, we weren’t doing anything! But we weren’t not doing anything either! Nothing crazy happened!”
“What did happen then?” Emma asks.
“He was just being so, ugh, and I was literally a puddle on the floor. I didn’t realize Garrett was there, I was afraid we’d get in trouble or something, I don’t know! I freaked out, I ran away and now he probably hates me.” My voice cracking on the word hate, fear and desperation lingering as I may have let my intrusive thoughts ruin something so wonderful.
“Benny doesn’t hate anyone,” Kate says, comforting me with a side hug and bringing me back to reality. “And he could never ever hate you. Or I’ll disown him.”
“But what if it’s too good to be true?” I whisper, intrusive thoughts taking over again.
“It’s not. You guys are perfect for each other!”
“Just text him. He probably thinks you don’t want to talk to him or he freaked you out or something,” Emma says, loading the repackaged groceries into the cart.
“Or he’s realized he can do better and doesn’t need a girl like me,” I whisper more to myself than them.
Emotionally broken, angry, and cynical.
“Don’t be ridiculous, you are wonderful and any guy would be lucky to have you. Benny included,” Emma pays Tiny Tim and we start to leave the store.
“I don’t know, maybe this is all too much. Maybe I should just leave it at a perfect kiss and not let anything ruin it.”
“What could ruin it?” Kate demands.
I could. And I probably will.
“Anything. Our jobs, being around each other too much, we could get tired of each other—bored.” I start rambling off the list of frightening realities that could ruin the perfect bubble surrounding Benny and I’s wannabe relationship.
“Ellie, stop,” Emma interjects, the stern tone to her voice she gets when she’s at her max with the kids. “You are self-sabotaging and you need to stop. Benny is a great guy, and you don’t think you deserve a great guy so you’re letting your brain get the best of you. Don’t let your scary thoughts win. Nothing is perfect, and things are bound to mess up somehow, especially in a relationship.” She puts her hand to her heart, a heaviness lingering that she isn’t ready to share yet. “But that doesn’t mean it's doomed. Nothing good and worth having comes easy. Give this a chance, give something good a chance.”
