One Kiss Later

18

There we were, still standing on the elevator together. It hadn't moved an inch. I guess nobody really used it on a Tuesday at 9 pm.

"How have you been?" Beau asked me.

"School, dance, my dad's campaign, nothing too new." I answered his question. "Starting on a sleeve?"

The last time I saw him, he only had three tattoos. The one in Arabic, the small 7 on his ribcage, and his sister's initials on his ankle. Now he had a lot going on on his lower right arm.

He looked down at his arm. "I wasn't intentionally, but it is turning out this way. I was kind of bored and lost over the summer. It was also kind of a therapeutic way to express myself."

"Fun." I looked away from him.

"Did you...um -" he started to question me.

I nodded. "I got it, read it, and thought about it."

"July?" I questioned him.

"I told you that I didn't make the best decisions." he responded.

"Clearly." I leaned against the wall. "I was in New York anyway."

Beau sighed. "Are we just going to dance around the elephant in the room?"

"I mean you didn't reach out to me for five months, tell me happy birthday, and you didn't even deliver me the letter," I recalled. "So yes."

"I told you that I was sorry, Nat. I know I was dumb as fuck, believe me. Can we please just go out for coffee tomorrow or something?" Beau questioned me.

I thought about it.

Tomorrow I had a day full of classes. I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't hear him out. 

As Nia said, I had to set boundaries.

"Let's just go tonight." I decided. 

"Our place?" he asked me.

I hate that my face gave in and smiled.

"Sunshine's." I confirmed.

Beau pressed the button to get to the lobby. I texted Nia to tell her that I was going to get an extremely late dinner with Beau.

I didn't want her to think that I died.

"Why are you leading me to a Mercedes? What happened to your Jeep?" I questioned him.

It was a black coupe with two doors. It had a nice black interior with red stitching. 

"I got into a car accident. She was sixteen, didn't know that you yield when turning left, and she hit the hell out of my car. It was totaled, so." he explained.

Beau took my bag, pushed the seat back, and put the bag in the backseat. He pushed the front seat to its normal position and let me get in. 

Thankfully, Sunshine's wasn't too far from our apartment. I didn't know what to say or do. 

This was kind of weird.

"This is your last year before the real world." I realized. "How are you feeling?"

"All over the place." he responded. "I've been doing MCAT practice for med school just in case. I got a 499 which isn't terrible, but I wanna improve by a couple of points."

"What's the highest you can get?" I asked him. 

I knew absolutely nothing about Med school.

"528." he responded. "You know my dad, so you know a 499 isn't good enough for him."