29 Stories of You and Me

2-Never Trust BOB: Thrown Under the Bus

Note: I'm changing ALL names.
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You: Yo. Bob said you wanted to msg me.
Me: You know, somedays I just really want to kill him you know?
You: What did I do? Please explain.
Me: Oh you didn't do anything. It was his fault :)

***

May 19th-May 20th 2018

I reached out to the person I had been dating at the time, Bob, who always said good things about Lin. He continuously told me about how kind and patient Lin was, and how he'd once stayed after school to help him with math despite almost getting in trouble. The way he described Lin was like the complete opposite of my initial impression (based on the chocolate money comment).

In addition to that, the always quiet boy who sat across from me briefly in chemistry had rarely spoken a single word, let alone ever made eye contact with me.

"I think he hates me," I admitted to Bob.

Bob thought this was hilarious and repeatedly told me that Lin didn't hate anyone, and being quiet was just who he was. I didn't listen. Lin just seemed too intimidating and scary for me to approach properly during school hours! Deep down, I really did want to get to know him! I wasn't sure why but I knew there just had to be more than "intimidating boy who never talks except to tell you to take extra money".

Suddenly, I came up with the most amazing idea.

"Hey, Bob."

"Yeah?"

"You should ask Lin if he thinks he's intimidating."

"Uh...what now?"

I watched the group chat (with the three of us in it) anxiously as Bob reluctantly asked Lin, "Do you think you're intimidating?". Of course, other people were on this group chat too, so when Lin replied, "Who thinks I'm intimidating?" I went into an all-out panic.

"How did he know someone thought he was intimidating?!" I asked Bob.

"I mean it's kinda obvious when you ask someone a question like that."

So Bob exposed me and straight-up told Lin I thought he was intimidating and scary. Needless to say, it wasn't my proudest moment.

Lin asked, "Why do you think I'm intimidating?"

I don't remember what exactly I said. Maybe it was something along the lines of, "you never talk!" or maybe "I don't know" or maybe "hahahaha..." Either way, I was mortified and humiliated. It was as if I were a deer caught in the headlights, except worse, because I wouldn't die after this. Oh no, I'd have to live this down, after the weekend passed, at school.

The next morning I told Bob that I really wanted to talk to Lin.

Again, I wasn't sure why I wanted to talk with him after that disastrous 1-minute conversation. Maybe my subconsciousness thought it'd be a good idea to clear up the embarrassing misunderstanding before school started (it was Sunday at this point). So, my best bet was to ask Bob about how I should approach this "situation" without making it too awkward.

Lesson one: never trust Bob

Because Bob told Lin "She wants to talk to you."

That's it.

No context.

"I told him you wanted to talk," was the only thing Bob sent to me before I, once again, completely lost it.

I ran upstairs to my room, leaving my half-eaten eggs and bacon downstairs, and called Bob.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?" I screamed.

Great. Now I wasn't even a deer anymore; it was me getting run over by a bulldozer, which Bob was driving! All I wanted to do was to go to his house and tear off his skin, then drop him into a pot of boiling water and making sure he suffered. Hardcore.

"Yo."
"Bob said you wanted to msg me?"

Once again, my brain offered a wonderful solution to my problem. A quick easy, but a not clean solution.

"You know, sometimes I just really want to kill him. Throwing me under the bus twice..." I texted back.

"What did I do? Please explain."

I think that was when I realized Lin wasn't a bad person at all.

He really cared about what other people thought of him and didn't want to accidentally hurt me.