99 Reasons Why It Wasn't Love

23 | The Twenty-Fourth Reason

I can't believe that it has been over two months since I updated! Here's a quick recap; Bronwyn hit Thatcher's car, is probably concussed. They're in the hospital waiting room. Thatcher gave Gina a third chance, and we still have no idea how that went. And by 'we' I mean you, because I know what happens. Ha.

Enjoy! Song to the side is 'I Won't Give Up' by Jason Mraz.

The Twenty-Fourth Reason

“Ragout. Four down. Ends with a –“ Thatcher brought the newspaper close to his face, squinting in complete concentration, “- ‘h.’ Sorta. Probably.”

“Your confidence is overwhelming.”

“Look at this,” he said, waving it frantically in front of my nose. People were starting to stare – apparently, a heated crossword puzzle was as exciting as it got in the hospital waiting room. “This person – this monster – tried to invent their own letter. The little punk.”

I gave him an incredulous look, plucking the crinkled newspaper from his hands. “It’s a ‘w.’”

“A ‘w’? A ‘w’, like the first letter in ‘what are you talking about, that looks like it came out of the Russian alphabet?’”

I rolled my eyes, leaning over the armrest to place it back in his lap. His endless loop of witty commentary was barely a distraction from the endless throbbing in the back of my head. “They started to write something in pencil, but went over it in pen. The new letter, the right letter, is a ‘w.’ Mystery solved.”

“Huh.” He tilted his head, like this concept was as perplexing as thermodynamics, or, say, astrophysics. “Huh.”

I raised en eyebrow. “Told you.”

“Doing a crossword in pen, though,” he shook his head, and I bit back a smile, “that’s crossing a line.”

“Pun intended?”

He paused, mouthed his last sentence, and then started to chuckle. “Pun not intended. Pun, however, still seems to capture my essence.”

I groaned. Then, after rotating my head slightly to the right, groaned again. This was starting to feel less like a concussion and more like terminal brain damage. “You did not just say that. You did not just say that a bad pun ‘captured your essence.’”

“Yup.”

“Stop.”

“I am a bad pun,” he said, excited. Before I could restrain him, he was leaning forward, perching on the edge of his seat, and grasping both of my hands in a ‘hallelujah’ moment. You could practically hear the angel choirs singing as Thatcher Wenceslas Lucas realized that he was, actually, similar to an unplanned, unfunny paronomasia.

“Think about it,” Thatcher continued, “I come when you least expect it. I add amusement to any situation. I’m corny and endearing at the same time.”