Escape | ✓

9

I was on cloud nine after my talk with Reuben.

Our conversation at the library kept replaying in my mind as I walked home. One chance. Reuben actually agreed to give me a chance! Sure, his driving force was different from my own, but I still saw it as one firm step in the right direction.

After a lot of back and forth, the two of us managed to come to an agreement. The first part of the talk focused on getting him to agree to not avoid me anymore. If he was serious about this—serious about giving me a chance—then I wanted to be sure that he wouldn't take off at the sight of me. Reuben, being Reuben, of course, had some of his own rules to go with it. At the very top of that list were friends. If by chance we happen to run into each other when one of us is out with friends then we leave each other alone. This rule didn't really mean much to me since all of my friends were back in the pack, but if it made Reuben feel better then I'd go along with it.

The second thing we discussed was keeping our new...situation quiet for now. It was Reuben who had brought this up, but before I could agree with him, I needed to understand just what he meant by quiet. After more talking, he explained to me that by quiet he meant from friends and family—with emphasis specifically on family. I agreed to this not so much for Reuben's sake but for my own. If word got out about this then I'd have Nixon and my parents outside my door before I could blink. I was sure that the three of them would work together to tell me about what a mistake I was making and I didn't put it past Nixon to try and confront Reuben himself if he knew that he was here.

We then talked about outings. Reuben was adamantly against them at first, but with a little compromise, I got him to agree to go to some of them.

We spent another half an hour talking about a bunch of small things before it was finally time to leave the library. Before leaving, I stopped him and asked for his number. Reuben stared at me funnily and it appeared as if he was about to say no, but I quickly reminded him that otherwise we'd have no way to contact each other he reluctantly agreed—but not before telling me not to spam his phone with nonsense.

As we were getting ready to leave, I offered to walk back with him to which he responded by snorting and telling me to slow down.

"This is the first actual conversation I've had with you since I've known you and you think I'm going to show you where I live?" He raised an eyebrow. "Slow down, Romeo."

So instead we went our separate ways. Embarrassing ending aside, I was hopeful—excited even—to see where this led to. Reuben had told me not to get my hopes up, but it was hard not to. I wanted this to work out.

So I walked back to my apartment with a goofy smile on my face and stepped into the elevator before hitting the button for my floor. Just as the doors were about to close, a man slid into the small room. He didn't hit a button, but instead, he leaned back against the wall and briefly stared at me.