The Girl in Blue

18- The Girl Gets Awkward

Sutton

A week into our relationship, everything feels perfect. That's how it's supposed to go, the beginning of a relationship always feels perfect. It takes at least a few weeks before you start to notice flaws in the other person but I'm not sure if I'll ever find flaws in Jonah. His smile, his laugh, his kiss, his kindness, it's all flawless.

After my shift on Monday, we decide to go downtown to this small coffee shop there because they have great homemade bagels and I could go for a bagel and some time to spend with Jonah. Hand in hand, we make our way down the sidewalk that leads down the street between campus and the downtown area.

"So this Halloween party," Jonah starts. "Where is it?"

"One of the frat houses," I inform him. "We might go to the bars too, I guess it'll just depend on how the night goes."

"I have an essay due on Monday," He says. "So it'll be pretty fun writing five pages while also being hungover."

I laugh a little bit, knowing all too well the torture of having to do homework during a hangover. "It'll be worth it though; it'll be a really great time. Lana is bringing Tristan and Levi, all of our friends are going, it's going to be a big group of us."

"I'm excited to meet all of your friends," Jonah tells me.

"I'm excited to gel your hair," I say with a wide grin but as I look forward at the other people on the sidewalk, my grin suddenly disappears. The tall boy walking toward us doesn't see me yet because he's on his phone and talking to his friends but I see him. Devon, my ex-boyfriend, and I don't want to see him. I think that if he sees me, he'll want to say hi and I don't want to talk to him, it'll make things awkward between Jonah and I but I just want to have a relaxed Monday evening.

"Let's cross the street," I suggest quickly, tugging on Jonah's hand toward the road but there's a few cars coming so we can't cross right away. Just as the last car passes, we step into the street just as I make eye contact with Devon and he stops talking to his friends.

I look away and walk faster to get to the other sidewalk. "Wait, isn't the coffee shop on that side?" Jonah notices after we've crossed.

"Really?" I pretend that I hadn't noticed. "Oh, I guess I got mixed up."

"Do you have plans tomorrow?" Jonah changes the subject without really giving it much thought.

I nod in confirmation. "Yeah, I'm going with Lana to check out a possible set for her film. I'm not sure how long it'll take but I'm assuming at least a few hours. Why, what'd you have planned?"

I turn to look at Devon but he's already passed my line of vision so I just forget that that just happened and move on, relieved that I avoided that bad situation. "I just have this exam on Thursday that I need to study for so I figured maybe we could just hang out and study together."

"How about Wednesday?" I offer up instead. The coffee shop is coming up so we have to cross the street again to get back to the right side.

"Yeah, Wednesday is good," He confirms. We get into the coffee shop and order our coffee. Because it's a week day, it's not unbearably busy but it is about evening time so there are a few group of people scattered throughout the tables. Once we find a small one to share, we sit down and I put my phone on the table just as the screen lights up with a new text. The sound beeps too but I have a strong suspicion that it's Devon so I quickly lock the screen and ignore it.

"Are you avoiding somebody?" Jonah asks me, noticing my weird behavior with my phone.

"No, I'm just talking to you right now," I explain. "It's probably Lana, it's not a big deal."