One
(I'm sorry, darling. These first chapters might hurt you, because I have been unnecessarily harsh at times, because I've seen faults with more clarity than is required. And also, like most brutally honest people, I like the brutality more than the honesty.)
I was sitting in my Regional Studies Class. My favourite clown was sitting next to me, in hysterics over one of our little inside jokes. She started paying attention to the teacher, I zoned out.
My musings that day were dwelling on my non-existent love life. I realised I had never dated a person. I'd been in a relationship, but my boyfriend was as odd a cookie as I, and we never truly dated. This seemed to me a great grievance, and I was bored out of my mind. I felt like doing something reckless, something that would make people laugh and gasp and that would spice up my life. So I scribbled on the back of my notebook:
dating him. good idea or bad idea?
-and passed it to the clown. She looked down at it, snorted, held back laughter. Grinned.
sounds fuuuunnn. go ahead, i wanna see his heart burn!
Okay, so she didn't add the second sentence, but it was implied. I resented the implication that I'd break his heart for approximately two seconds, then I shrugged. She was probably right. I grinned back, and added it to my to-do list.
To this day, though, I don't know (a) if the clown did me a favour or a disservice and (b) whether she was being sarcastic or not.
Whatever the case may be, I ran it past a couple of other female friends, who ran after it squealing and demanded I do it, and then the decision was made.
My god, what a production my friends made out of it. I suppose it isn't every day I decide to ask out people right out of the blue. But I kinda do . . . Romance just turns people really sappy and enthusiastic, I suppose.
For the venue, I decided on the bus, where we would get relative privacy and quiet. I would have been content to take him aside for a quick moment and ask him out, then come back and sit in our three seater with his best friend like everything was normal, regardless of his reply.
But of course, this wouldn't satisfy my friends, who required a big romantic gesture even though nothing earthshaking would be happening. So they moved heaven and earth, until me and him, we had a whole row of seats on the bus to ourselves, while three idiots sat behind us listening to our every word. He had not been notified of anything that was going on.
To my surprise, as he slid into the seat next to me, my heart was beating faster, and I was slightly nervous. I hadn't expected to be.
He pushed down on his seat, and put his knees up against the back of the seat in front of us, in the typical 'I'm chilling in a school bus' posture, keeping a comfortable distance between us. Every time I think of that I remember how he would immediately apologise whenever he even brushed against my skin, even on a crowded seat. How adorable I found that.
But teary-eyed reminiscences aside, he had the same respect for my personal space on that day as he always did.
He gave me a sideways smile and crinkled them beautiful brown eyes. "Hi."
I smiled back slightly. "Hey."
With a glance backward at the idiots waiting with bated breath, he asked, "So, what's all this about? I hear you wanted to talk?"
I immediately broke out into a stupid grin and started waving my hands about. "Um, yeah . . . well, you see, about that . . ."
He laughed at the obvious stalling. "Spit it out. What's going on?"
