My Savage Love for You

Ghosted

Jason

"Jason, can you pause it for a sec?" Kim said from the kitchen as she was making popcorn.

It was late at night and I had just gotten discharged from the hospital that morning. Kim insisted she would stay the night to make sure everything was alright. We were watching our favorite reality show and I was lying face down on my couch.

I couldn't stop thinking about what happened at the pool. I still felt so embarrassed about the fact that I face-planted on the concrete and was carried out on a stretcher in front of everyone. On top of that, I sent him a text in the morning saying we should hang out again and he left me and my six-pack on read. I felt like the entire universe was against the idea of me liking this unbelievably fine man.

"Are you still sulking about how you embarrassed yourself in front of that white boy, his flat-booty girlfriend, and the rest of the aquatic center and then got ghosted?" Kim bluntly asked as she walked into the living room. "Maybe some popcorn will help you snap out of it," she said as she threw a handful of greasy popcorn at me. She took a seat with the bowl in her lap and said, "M'kay I'm ready now, you can hit play," with her mouth full.

As the show resumed, I couldn't seem to pay attention. I kept imagining how ugly I looked with my face down on the ground. All that I could hope for was that my pushups that morning paid off and that my back muscles looked good when it was face up from the concrete. I wish I knew what happened between my collapse and when I gained consciousness at the hospital.

"Oh, come on, Jason!" my sister said angrily. "You know I had to give up seeing my photographs at the new museum tonight to be here for you, so stop sulking around and pay attention to the TV. I'm not gonna rewind just because you were too busy being miserable over some suspicious guy you met at the park."

Ring-a-ding-a-ling-a-dong

I scrambled to unravel the blankets that I buried myself and my sadness in and almost slipped on the tile floor as I ran to the kitchen in my socks to answer the phone, hoping it was Penn.

The caller ID read, "Mom".

With disappointment, I accepted the call and told my mom all about my day at the pool and my fainting while leaving out the details about Penn.

At around 10 PM that night, I still had no response from Penn. I felt completely defeated and finally went to bed wishing I would wake up feeling less sorrowful. I turned off my phone in hopes that it would help me refrain from checking my notifications a billion times and making sure my ringer is on.

When I woke up, I was surprised to see it was 11 AM. It took me hours to finally fall asleep the night before because I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted to undo the past few days. I took my time getting out of bed until I remembered that Kim stayed the night.

I turned on my phone and as I waited for it to load, I walked to the kitchen to make my famous deep-fried pancake tacos for me and Kim. Meanwhile, I was hoping to have received anything from Penn while knowing deep down that he didn't send a thing.

"Good morning, JJ," Kim yawned. "Are those your famous deep-fried pancake tacos I'm smelling!?"

"You know it, girl. Stop calling me JJ," I replied frankly.

Once I served Kim my deep-fried concoction for the most important meal of the day, I went to grab my phone out of habit. I scrolled through my notifications and realized that I got a message from Penn. I did a double-take to see if this was true. When my brain finally registered that it was real, I panicked in anticipation of what it would say. I couldn't stop wondering, "Does he want to hang out? What if this is his message saying that we can't be friends anymore?"

When the message finally loaded, it read, "Don't worry about it. It'd be great to see you again. How's the recovery going?"

"YESSSSSSSSSSS! IT'D BE GREAT TO SEE ME AGAIN!!!" I screamed with my hands in the air.

"Jesus, Jason!" Kim shouted by the kitchen counter in annoyance with ice cream all over her shirt. "You made me get ice cream all over my pajamas!" she whined.

I ignored her groaning and began to type a response. I started with, "doing a lot better, thanks for asking." I thought about what we should do together. I thought about working out together, going for a run, or trying something new, like tennis, but none of them seemed too exciting.

Finally, I got the perfect, yet terrifying idea of inviting him over. I knew for a fact that I would regret it, but at the moment, it was all that I wanted. I took advantage of this rare surge of courage to make a risky move. I finished the message by saying, "you should swing by my place some time to try my famous doughnut burger," hit "send", and went to sit with Kim to enjoy my surprisingly edible masterpiece.

Once reality settled into my brain, I shrieked in disbelief that I invited the man who saw me faint in public and whom I have been dreaming about since we met, over to my house. I began to cross my fingers, toes, and tongue in hopes that Penn would politely decline my overly ambitious invitation.

"Jason, what is up with you this morning?" Kim asked with her eyebrows furrowed.

"The white boy responded and I got too excited and invited him over," I said slowly with defeat. I sighed while stuffing my entire deep-fried pancake taco into my mouth while staring out into space, feeling hopeless.

Kim began to laugh hysterically. Through her laughter, she was able to say, "So, first you fainted in public at the sight of some guy's abs. Then, you were sulking around your house for a whole day over a message left on read. Now, he texted you back, so your initial response was to invite the white boy over? Girl, please."

I ignored my sister's petty comments as my eyes widened at the sight of the bubbles on the screen. "HE'S TYPING!!" I exclaimed in my head.

Finally, the bubbles turned into a message saying, "Sure, I can come by."

I screamed like a little girl with my hands so high in the air that I was touching the moon. "HE SAID YESSSS!!"

"Are you serious!?" Kim said with her eyebrows furrowed while covering her ears.

"YESSSSS!!" I shouted in her face.

Penn and I worked out the details through text and we decided he would come over later that evening. I kicked Kim out 3 hours in advance so that there wouldn't be any "Kim energy" lingering in my house when Penn came over.

♪ SAVAGE LOVE ♪

"Penn is here!" I thought in a panic from the sound of my doorbell. I was dressed in a black T-shirt and indigo, ripped jeans. I was wearing three gold chains of different sizes with a big cross hanging on one. When I went to answer the door, I saw Penn's blurry figure in the window and began to sweat. I whispered some final words of encouragement to myself before letting Penn become the finest man to ever enter my mansion, "We're doing this, Jason. No backing out now. We got this."

I opened the door and