I Kept My Promise - #ModernLoveContest

Chapter 3

I didn't bother with makeup. I wore an off the shoulder shirt with a bright pink sports bra. I figured we'd talk for an hour and then I'd get ready for bed. I was already snuggled in my queen sized bed with all my pillows and my soft yellow duvet. Puppycat and Sully, my stuffed animals, sat next to me.

"Are you... are you in the bathroom?"

"Oh, no. Everyone asks that. This is a dorm room for RAs. They just have the sink in the regular room."

"Oh okay. Just know I'm judging your skin care routine." I gestured my head towards the shelf with all his soaps and shaving creams.

This computer camera looked more like what I had imagined him to be than the last video chat. The first one had a fish-eye lense that warped his face to be a little bit longer. He's a squarish guy from the shape of his face to the shape of his shoulders. I think he was wearing the same shirt as before, or maybe all he owned was Maritime Academy t-shirts.

My parents are honestly perfect for each other, he had told me. My mom's this little under 5 foot philipino lady and my Dad's this giant blue-eyed white guy. They like to go out on hikes together.

"Everyone assumes I'm Mexican."

"Is it because you're from Florida?" There are a lot of hispanics in Florida.

"No, it's just because I'm brown and exotic. It's even worse when I shave my head. I look like I'm part of the cartal."

"I mean, if you are actually a serial killer I think you'd make a great extra on Breaking Bad."

He thought that was funny. "As a murdering Mexican meth dealer?"

"Seems pretty on brand for you. I'd cast it."

"Unsmiling, stoic blockhead with unusually long arms and alien-fingers, a giant neck and tiny child-sized pants."

I promise you all of those things were true to an extent, but he was not that goofy-looking. He seemed to laugh a lot so I wasn't sure why no one had caught him smiling in a photo yet.

"Is it Rick or Richard?"

"I mean, I dunno."

"What? What about your last name? Is it De Back er or De Bake er?"

"Do you typically say people's names?"

"No, my boss does and it weirds me out."

"Exactly. When I was younger I would tell my teachers, 'My own name sounds too familiar.'"

"Oh my God, would you answer the question? You can't just be like 'Yeah... I dunno it depends on how I feel I guess.' What is your name?"

Both of us were in a fit of laughter.

"It's Rick," he decided. "Why, what about you?"

"Hannah, although I've gotten a bunch of people to call me Hana." It's a palindrome. You can call me by my name backwards and I won't know the difference.

"That's fancy."

"Yeah, much too fancy for me. Sometimes I go by my last name, but not as often."

He nodded his head before chuckling again.

"You're still laughing."

"It's still funny."

"All of your pop culture references are from the 80s." I think I told him at one point that the man was like a walking Tumblr post. He made so many absurd jokes about obscure references, that even as a pretty thorough movie/TV buff, I was falling behind.

He looked confused.

"Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, The Outsiders, Aha... Wait, did you really not realize that you liked the 80s until I pointed it out?

He hadn't. He also read a lot. "Moby Dick is my favorite." He liked revenge stories.

"So when I was stationed in Okinawa there was one place on the base people would go and it was a bowling alley."

"There are no bowling alleys in Japan," I laughed.

"There was on the base."

"No Japanese person in their right mind would go to a bowling alley. This was some building where all the military would pent up their shenanigans and the regular civilians would just leave them to their ridiculousness."

"Oh yeah, no, that's exactly what this was. And as I've mentioned before when I was in training my aim was so bad that they asked me, 'are you sure you're left-handed?'"

This was for throwing grenades.

"So... I have no aim and I hate bowling, and I'm really bored. I don't typically drink too much unless I'm bored. There were two drinking options. Either you could buy a 6 pack for 20 bucks... or you could get a nip for 1."

"So, what did you do, buy 20 nips?"

"I didn't get 20," he corrected me, "but I had a few. And when it was my turn to go, I missed so bad that it just went straight into the gutter. Just... didn't even go down the lane. So the next ball I took, and I don't really remember this, but this is what my friends told me, I threw it straight up into the ceiling."

I snorted. "What? Wait, hold on, rewind. I'm picturing like Wiley Coyote just punching a hole into the air."

"I think they exaggerated, but apparently I did just chuck a bowling ball straight into the air and then left the alley in a huff. So then I walked back to my room and I had to check in with the Duty."

"The Duty?"

"Yeah, they got nothing to do. They just sit around and let people in and out of the building."

"But they're actually called 'The Duty.'"

"Yes, okay?" he laughed. "So the Duty starts with, 'Were you out bowling?' And I'm drunk and paranoid. I thought he had heard that I threw a tantrum and was about to get in trouble, so I lied, 'No, I wasn't bowling.'"

"'Oh yeah?' And gives me a chance to correct myself.'

"'You still have your shoes on, son.'

He made me laugh.

It had been four hours.

"We never got to the movie."

I shook my head. I never thought that we would. I was about to fall asleep. It was almost midnight. He had taken all his covers from his bed and sat in his chair cuddled up in them.

He threw his blanket over his shoulder like a scarf. "Yes, I do wear my blanket like an ancient explorer."

"You look like a roman."

"You know what's crazy? How people would travel halfway across the world just to get some spices. Like can you imagine, getting one hit of some salt and pepper, then deciding to just, go on a silk trail? Risk your life..."

"For some sweet sweet cayenne pepper? Yeah. Totally get it. Would have done it myself. Maybe killed a few people. I dunno."

"If I die," he told me, "tell them I was in search of Flavortown."

"A brave and honorable quest, godspeed." Then I reminded him, "We need to make plans for Saturday."

"Oh yeah."

"I'm worried."

"What, why?"

"I'm worried that neither of us have been out of the house for over a year and we're going to do something reckless."

"Reckless? Like what?" He sounded interested.

"Pinky promise me that we'll keep each other in check."

"Wait, but I don't understand what counts as 'too crazy'"

I didn't want to start with the worst possible assumption. "I mean... you tell me stories about getting drunk and throwing bowling balls."

"No, no, no..."

"Promise me."

"I just went out with my friend, we had a few drinks, I was completely fine. I can handle this."