It Doesn't Matter (Matter #1)

37. This is a Date

It was finally Saturday and Malkia had managed to turn the week around, she was happy and excited for her date with Luke. She wore her favorite dress. It was a light blue lace dress that went all the way to the top of her knees. She had tried not to think of Ryuu when she was putting on her ballerina shoes, so she was still smiling when he showed up in his bike.
She tried to smile at him after she saw it, she didn’t like bikes and she didn’t understand why he rode one after the accident he had been with his parents, bikes were more dangerous weren’t they?
“Hey,” she said to him, she nervously looked back towards her house to make sure that her mother, the number one gossip in her life was not looking. She didn’t want her to start getting any more ideas about her ending up with a rich boy.
Malkia thought of herself as a practical person and that was one of the reason she found it so hard to like Ryuu. They didn’t make sense because they were so different, they came from to separate worlds and it would always be that way so there was no point for her to have any emotional attachment, she couldn’t help her physical attachment but that was all there was ever going to be.
She understood that Luke wasn’t very practical either but she owed it to herself to be young and have fun, explore every love that she had so she would never have to think what if the way her father did when he watched Mixed Martial Arts matches. Luke was practical past all that too, he was like her in a way and he wasn’t as showy as Ryuu so she didn’t feel like they were from separate worlds. I mean the guy didn’t even have two other cars behind him full of bodyguards; it was just him and his bike.
“You ready?” Luke asked her after hugging her in greeting, she smiled at him and nodded and it made him remember how the rest of their week had gone. They had spent most of their free and even some of their not so free – meaning that they ditched classes – together. They didn’t talk much; he liked that about her, the fact that she didn’t feel the need to fill the silence. They would both be reading or he would try to fall asleep while she stared off into space and then they would look at each other and smile, she always ended up blushing when that happenned, he always touched her chin and made her look at him so he could see just how soft her eyes were when she looked at him.
He was really glad that he hadn’t given up on her, he felt that he had a real shot of making it work with her, he felt that they were compatible. But he still saw sadness and pain when she stared off into space and he did note that she never used to do that before, he acknowledged that it would take time for her to get over Ryuu but it was fine so long as she decided to get over Ryuu and not him.
He knew that it could go either way.
He didn’t think that she knew it. He thought she didn’t want to know it but it was obvious how much she missed him. It had been painfully obvious yesterday when they ran into each other in the hall, Ryuu had walked right past them like they weren’t there and she had turned to look at him like she couldn’t believe that he hadn’t even graced her with a cuss.
“I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be,” she said avoiding his eyes. She acted so shy around him.
He got on his back, kicked off the stand and asked her to get on then handed her a helmet though he didn’t wear one. He was a very slow driver. He couldn’t go over sixty without having the memory of the car crush that took his parents from him flash by his eyes. That was why he rode a bike, it was different, it didn’t have the enclosing walls or the smell of gas leaking in as a fire started when a crash took place, a motor cycle would simply throw you off.
His grandfather didn’t understand but he let him have one regardless, he was very eager to keep Luke happy and it wasn’t because Luke was born autistic, it was because Luke was all his grandfather had now that his father was gone. Sure there were cousins and other distant relatives but none of them were expected to head Clearwater Industries.
Malkia clasped her hands around him and he took one hand off the handles to place his own above hers, he took to her to somewhere normal, somewhere he thought she might feel comfortable.
Malkia couldn’t believe he had taken her to the number one couple restaurant in her side of the city, she knew that he probably never went there himself and that he was trying to make her comfortable but it rubbed her the wrong way, she felt like he simply wanted to keep her from his world. Like he might be ashamed of taking her somewhere people he knew would see her or that he simply thought it was too much for her.
Ryuu would never think that, she thought then tried to take the thought away. She didn’t need to think of Ryuu when she was on this date with Luke.
She smiled at him when they got to her table and he pulled the chair out for her. The waiter came and they ordered the same meal burgers and fries with chocolate smoothies. They then sat in silence as they waited. She started feeling awkward it was one thing to be quiet when they sat together in the library or in their empty class but this was a date. They were supposed to talk.
Think of something to say, she ordered herself but nothing came to mind so she just smiled nervously at him and he smiled calmly back like the silence was not irking him at all.
“So…” she said but she couldn’t think of anything to follow that, what happened to all the words they used to say to each other – did they ever say any words to each other? They always talked about academics and studies “I think I should expect to be one of the top ten performers this month, my teachers are all so impressed, they don’t get why my grades are improving when I’m cutting so many classes.”
He smiled at her and said “Of course,”
She looked at her knees so he couldn’t see her reaction to his words, of course? Of course?! There were so many things he could of have said back to that, so many things that could of have been conversation prolongers.
She sighed then tried again “I heard that you’re the top of your grade? Are you a genius like me?” her voice was teasing even though she felt slightly sad when she remembered who had told her that.
Luke shrugged “Maybe,”
She decided to stop trying then, there was no need for her to be the person talking nonstop especially to someone who didn’t feel the need for all the chatter.
So their meals arrived half an hour later that was the thing about restaurants on this side of town. They ate in silence and stood to leave when they were done.
Luke turned to smile at her when they stepped outside “Is there anything else you want to do?”
“Not really,” she said, her voice was kind of surly, she wasn’t having a fun time on this date and she just couldn’t believe it. They loved each other, so why couldn’t they have fun with each other? Was he being purposefully boring?
She especially didn’t like how this experience was making her appreciate all the times she had been alone with Ryuu, she always felt excited and scared then and this experience was making her miss those feelings. It was making her feel like she had made a mistake in wanting to see what would come out of her crush on him.
“Do you want to come to my house then?” Luke asked, his voice was sweet and pleading and she just didn’t know how to say no when he asked like that so she went with him.
She couldn’t believe there was a neighborhood with properties as large theirs, the gates were so far apart it looked as though they were each a gated community of their own. She felt her eyes enlarge when they pulled up on the veranda of his house.
It was gigantic, it was not to be called a house because it might of have as well been a hotel. But it was beautiful and homey, the entire structure was made of wood and it was styled to appear ancient, like something that belonged on Earth not Uith.
“Your house is so beautiful,” she said when she could finally form words. They were already inside the house by then.
“Thanks,” he said and led her to his room. He was not the kind of person that understood host duties so he didn’t take her to see anything else.
“OMG!” Malkia gushed when they walked into his room, it was bigger than their entire home and it had the best view of the maze behind the house. The sit in window was not the best thing in the room. “You have the new Quad game?” Malkia asked moving closer to the console.
“You can play if you want,” Luke told her as he settled on the window seat.
Malkia had been hoping that the Quad games would get cheap with time so that she could at least afford a second hand one but that was yet to happen, they actually got more expensive over time, as if they were land! She had been dying to play this game especially because it had one of the most developed virtual reality aspects in the galaxy.
She placed the glasses on but left the ear phones because she was only going to see what the fuss was all about – she knew what the fuss was about – and then go back to trying to salvage this date.
“This is so cool,” she said to Luke when the glasses came to life and had her sitting in a throne in a large empty room. It was the throne of Oydra, the ancient civilization that the Quad game was based on.
She took it off after a few minutes, it was pointless getting hooked when she couldn’t do mission on it, you can’t do missions on other people’s games. It didn’t feel the same.
“I’ve always wanted to try that one,” she turned around to face Luke but he was hanging his head on the pillows on the window seat, she knew him well enough to be certain that he was asleep.
She moved towards him and placed more pillows around his head so he could be comfortable. She looked at his sleeping face for a while and then something deep inside her moved up to her chest and then it suddenly came to her mouth and she found herself saying “I thought I loved you, I don’t know, I thought what I felt was love but now, I’m starting to think that it was all simply yearning. It’s the word that comes to mind whenever I think of you, I yearn for you and it feels pretty good when I do. It doesn’t feel so good having you though, not if this is all there is.”
“I know that I need to try again, give you a chance, I need to give myself a chance to be normal around you. I mean I can barely form words as it is, you had to be asleep for me to say all this but I – I found myself thinking of Ryuu today and I think that tells me all I need to know about us.”
She stood up and left the room.
Luke opened his eyes as soon as the door shut behind her, he thought he could win her back if he tried but there was no point if she was leaning towards Ryuu, he had already done so much wrong to his friend.
“I’ll give her up for you,” he whispered as a single tear fell from the corner of his left eye “Ryuu.”