What Happened After

Chapter 34

Chapter 34.


          “I’m outside, are you just about ready?”


          “Yeah, I’m just finishing up,” I said into the phone.


          “Do you want me to come up there and help you get your stuff together to bring down?”


          “That would be super helpful, actually, thanks.”


          “’K, I’ll be right up. Just gotta get someone to let me in the building.”


          “Alright, thanks Ruess, I’ll be here.”


          I hung up, looking around my messy dorm room. Anna had moved out yesterday, so I had the room to myself for one whole day. It was Thursday, June 6th, and my freshman year of college was officially over. The only thing I had left to do was pack my things up into the Bronco and turn in my key. My parents had offered to come pick me up and help me pack, but Ruesso insisted I go home with him since we were both going to the same place. Now, I realized that I probably shouldn’t have told him I was ready to go, since my room was in disarray and I was nowhere near being ready.

          “Jesus, Rayn, you liar.” I heard from the doorway. I spun around, and he was leaning against my open doorframe on his shoulder, one leg crossed over the other and his arms folded. He had a smirk on his face, so I knew he wasn’t annoyed with me, and I just shrugged my shoulders.


          “Sorry, I really was packing, but I got distracted going through all my things. Help me?”


          He smiled and shook his head, then pushed himself off the wall and walked towards me. He grabbed hold of the bill of his baseball cap and turned it backwards so he could give me a quick kiss. Hoping to distract him, I grabbed his hand as he pulled away and pulled him in for another, longer kiss, which got him laughing.


          “Nope. No, you’re not doing that this time. We are packing up your damn room, and you can kiss me in the car on the way back home as much as you want.”


          “You need to be paying attention to the road.”


          “Right. Okay, one more, then.”

 
          I smiled, giving him a short kiss, before pulling away and stating, “Okay seriously though, I really do need to hunker down and do this.”


          “I just want you to know that I packed my room in like an hour and I even left most of the Bronco for your crap to occupy.”


          “That’s probably a good thing, otherwise I would have to leave most of my stuff behind.”


          “No kidding, I’ve seen the amount of shit you have, and I’ve got nowhere near the same amount as you.”


          "Shut up! Are you helping me or not?”


          He helped me fill my boxes, just throwing everything he could see into any box, and together we carried each and every box I had downstairs and out to the Bronco. When we finally had it all packed up, he closed the back doors and moved around to the drivers’ seat. “I’m gonna pull the car around the back to leave while you check out and all that.”


          “Gotcha.” I ran back inside to deposit my room and mail keys in the front desk’s drop box. The guy working the desk notice me and smiled. “You all set to go?”


          “Yep, my boyfriend and I just packed the car up and we’re heading out within the next couple minutes.”


           “Well have an incredible summer.”


          “I will. You too!”


          It felt great walking out of the building knowing for a fact that this summer would be a hundred times better than the last. It was nice to have that one thing as reassurance.


          Hopping back into the car, I shut my door and smiled over at Ruesso. “Thanks again for coming to pick me up.”


          “Well, I figured I might as well. Wouldn’t been a little lonely without a companion.”


          I jabbed him in the ribs, laughing, and he took my hand in his own, leaning over for a kiss. I let him have one, and then gestured at the road in front of us, wanting to go home. He obliged, sighing, and we were on our way. I called my parents and let them know we were coming, and they told me they would have dinner ready for the both of us if Ruesso wanted to come.


          “You want to come to dinner tonight at my parents’ house?”


          “You know it,” he replied.


          I said into the phone, “Yeah, he’s in. We’ll see you guys then.”


          I hung up the phone, and I looked out over the open road ahead of us. Holding Ruesso’s hand, I have never felt safer.


          A few hours into the trip, Ruesso turned down his 80s music playlist and glanced over at me. “Hey, do you still remember your graduation speech?”


          It obviously wasn’t a question I had been expecting, but I answered it instantly, nonetheless. “Yep, why?”


          “No reason, I’ve just been wondering about that a lot recently. I figured you would probably still remember it, since you spent so long practicing it.”


          “Yeah, I haven’t practiced it since last year, but I’m sure if I thought about it, I could recite the entire thing.”


          “Cool.”


          It was an odd conversation, but before I could ask what was going on, Ruesso turned the music back up and it was like nothing had happened. A couple hours before we got home, we passed the same Denny’s restaurant we had eaten at on our way home for Christmas break. He glanced over at me and raised his eyebrows, as if to ask, “Should we do it?”


          “Rue, my parents are cooking us dinner in just a few hours! It’s not even dinner time.”


          “We’re doing it; you know you want a Grand Slamwich.”


          “That’s not fair, you know I can’t turn down a Slamwich.”


          “Yes! She comes around!” He took the next exit and turned around, taking us back to the restaurant. We each got our meals and instantly regretted the decision.


          “You were right,” I said. “The food actually is a lot better in the middle of the night than it is during normal hours.”


          “How do people eat here?”


          We ended up not eating our sandwiches, and packing them up as leftovers. “Maybe if we eat them really late tonight, they’ll taste better.”


           “You’re probably right.” We ordered to-go boxes and packed up our meals, paid the waitress, and got back on the road.


          “Well, that was a waste of time,” I said.


          “Shut up, those are memories!”


          “Memories? The last time we went there, we were in our pajamas and didn’t even know each other.”


          “And now we do. And we’re wearing clothes. That’s probably what made this time so much worse.”


          “God, you’re annoying.”


          “You love me though.”


          “That’s your fault.”


          We spent the rest of the drive listening to Ruesso’s music and dancing and singing along. At one point one of my boxes fell over and exploded all over the back of the car, but he wouldn’t pull over so I could check if anything was broken. I told him that I was unbuckling so I could lean over the seat and check, and he jokingly began to veer off into the other lane while I looked. I slapped him on the shoulder and told him “eyes on the road!” He laughed hysterically and straightened the wheels out. I was just happy he had become comfortably with his driving skills again. Finally, after a year, his driving confidence had been fully restored and he knew in his heart that whatever happened that day last June, it had not been his fault in the slightest.


          When we pulled into my driveway, my parents came rushing out of the house to give me a hug, and my dad shook Ruesso’s hand. “Thanks for bringing our baby home safe,” he told him.


          “No problem, Scott.”


           “Come in, you guys! We’ve got lots of food waiting!” my mom shrieked. Laughing, I followed her in, deciding to bring my stuff into the house later. Ruesso stayed back for a second to call his mom and let her know he had made it home safely, and he would be back at her house after dinner.


          That Monday, after we had been home for the whole weekend, I got a call from him, telling me he was coming to pick me up from my house. He told me to wear a white dress, if I had one, and to do my hair nice. It was morning, so I was confused as to what his plans were. We clearly weren’t going to a fancy lunch or dinner, and I couldn’t think of another reason for the specifically white dress.


           Unless he was planning to marry me right then and there, but I wrote that idea off pretty quickly. I tried to imagine what my response would be if that had been the case.


          Instead, when I got into his car, he blindfolded me. “Just until we get there,” he had said. “Then you can take it off for the rest of the day.”


          “Are we going some place far away?” I asked.


          “Nope. Like five minutes. I got you.” I took my hand, placing a kiss there, and then the car started. Just like he had said, five minutes later we stopped. “One second,” he said. He opened his door and hopped out of the truck, coming around to open my door. He took my hand and placed one of his arms under my legs, lifting me out of the car and placing me gently onto the ground. “You okay?”


          “I’m fine, can I take this off yet?” I asked, reaching up to take off the blindfold.


          “Not yet Rayn. I promise I’ll take it off in just a second.”


          He led me by foot for several hundred steps, and we ended up walking down some stairs. By this point, I really couldn’t think of any possibilities as to where we were. When he finally stopped me and told me turn to face him, I noted that we were still outside and had never entered a building. I also couldn’t hear anybody around me besides him, so there were only two options: We were in an empty field, or he had randomly brought me to a forest.


          He put his hands of both of my shoulders and maneuvered me into a position suitable for him. “I’m gonna step away now,” he said. “I’ll tell you when you can take it off, okay?”


          “Okay.”