What Happened After

Chapter 30

Chapter 30.

          The next time I spoke to Ruesso in person was a few days into February, when he waltzed into the shop as if he had been doing it every day prior. “Hey, you,” he had said to me, taking a seat at a table near the counter I was working at. A couple days after the last time he was here, I texted him and asked him to stop coming just to check up on me, and after promising him that I would call him immediately if Taryn tried anything again, he eventually agreed.

          So now, looking at him at that table, I wondered why he was here. So I asked.

          “What are you doing here?”

          “I’m ordering lunch.” He seemed confused as to why I would ask, looking around the shop as if he was thinking of some other reason he should be here.

          “Oh yeah?” I asked. “Most people do it at the counter. I’m not a waitress, you know. I don’t come to you.”

          “Maybe you should change that.” It was then that I realized that trying to convince Ruesso to do anything was completely hopeless. No matter what you ever said to him, once he had something in his head, he wouldn’t budge.

          “Ruess, come on. What do you want?”

          “You mean from the menu, or from you?” He asked innocently.

          “The menu, you child.”

          That got him to smile. Uh, get me a PBH and a Snapple from behind the counter.”

          “Are you gonna pay?”

          “If you get over here and take my money from me.” I shook my head as I punched his order into the computer Antoine had recently bought for the shop. There was really no necessary use for it, since we never had more than two customers in the shop at a time and I was more than capable of doing that simple math in my head. Taryn, on the other hand…

          “Well your total is six dollars, so just let me know where your wallet is and I will.” I looked up to find him smirking at me, and I wanted to slap the smug look right off his face. It was so infuriating to me, yet I found it so attractive, and I hated myself for thinking so. I quickly turned away as my conversation with Anna came flooding back to me. You’re in love with him, she had said. And I absolutely hated to admit it, but I kind of felt like she was right. I mean, I didn’t quite feel for Ruesso the same way I had felt about Kale, but I knew deep down that if I let myself try, then I could. Before I could convince myself how stupid what I was about to do was, I found myself clearing my throat and moving towards him. “Hey, Ruess?” I asked tentatively.

          “Hmm?” He was fiddling with his cell phone, and his expression changed when he looked up and saw me standing so close to him. “What?”

          “Can I—I actually needed to talk to you about something.”

          Since I had gone so long without seeing him, I thought that maybe my feelings for him would somehow just disappear. Out of sight, out of mind. But now that he was here in front of me, all my feelings had come rushing back and I knew that there was no exit to what I was feeling. I had just surrender, and the first step to getting over it was to simply tell him.

          “Go ahead,” he urged in a soft tone. He gestured for me to sit down in the seat across from him at the table, which I gladly did. Anything to stop my legs from shaking so much.

          “I um…I really wanted to tell you—”

          I was interrupted by the bell above the front door ringing—another improvement to the shop made by Antoine, though it’s not like we needed any sort of signal a person was walking in—and was met with Taryn’s smiling face entering the shop. When he noticed who I was talking to, however, he turned around and left as suddenly as he’d come in. Ruesso just stared at me, focused on what I was about to say. I thought it was because if he looked in Taryn’s direction, he would have to go say something to him—something that probably wouldn’t be too nice. But the thought also crossed my mind that maybe he was over what had happened between Taryn and I, and that he was going to stop bugging us about it. I liked that reason better.