Mysterious Romance

Caleb

I was accepted to the call center!

It's my first day on the job. Among all these strangers, I'm going to reinvent myself.

I try to walk confidently as I head into the building, despite the tightness in my throat and my racing heart.

I lay a hand on the door handle and take a deep breath.

This is it.

As I walk in, a bunch of people look over at me curiously.

Time to greet them. I gather up my breath.

"Hey..." I mutter.

A few of them call out greetings, quietly. Going good so far.

The manager leads me to my cubicle, and introduces me to the job.

Everything goes well, and I get off work feeling confident.

"Hey, what's your name?" I ask the guy getting out of the chair next to me. He has a blue shirt and is overweight.

"Uh, Elijah. What about you?" he says.

For a moment I'm put off, an old instinct not to talk to someone who looks like he's at the bottom of the social ladder coming to the fore.

But that's not me now.

"My name is Caleb. So, you have any plans for this evening?" I ask awkwardly.

Should I have said something cooler? Maybe cracked a joke?

"Oh, uh, no, do you want to like..."

Before he can finish, a woman's voice cuts in.

"We should all hang out."

It's a well modulated voice, textured and sweet like honey.

Her gaze meets mine at eye level. She has soft skin, pink lips and a piercing stare that quickly becomes too much. My eyes drop away from it and land on a starched white blouse with a full chest.

I look off to the side.

"Caleb. I was in your class at Pinegrove. Nice to see you again."

I snap my eyes back to her face, where her icy brown gaze locks with mine. It takes a moment for her words to sink in.

My school. Shit.

"Yeah, I was a stupid kid back then." I say, chuckling like a maniac.

"So, where are we going?" she says.

Oh, right. She's coming with me to hang out with Elijah.

Shit. What do friends do? I have to come up with something, or we won't hang out and I'll never make friends here. My mind is blank. What would I do if they weren't coming? That works.

"Ice cream? We could go out and get ice cream." I say, then immediately curse myself.

Getting ice cream is a kid thing, or a thing that close friends do. They're going to think that's weird. Why can't I have-

"Sure, that works." says the girl with the silky brown hair.

I realize that I never got her name, and also that it would be too awkward to ask now.

"Uh, so what do you like to do, Caleb?" asks Elijah.

Emma is driving, since she's the only one with a car, and after an awkward moment of hesitation me and Elijah both got into the back seat.

"Oh, not much really. I just sit on the couch and binge shows," I say, not wanting to mention my side job. "What about you? And, um.." I was going to ask about the brown haired girl too, but I realize I don't know her name.

"I, uh, play video games. Blood shooter 4." he says, naming a popular new game I've heard about on social media.

"I used to play video games with my friends." I mention, then curse myself for mentioning my old friendgroup around the girl.

"Oh really? Blood shooter 4 is beginner friendly, I could show you sometime." Elijah says.

"I'd love to learn too!" The girl says enthusiastically. "You can teach me the game too, while you're showing Caleb. What kind of game is it?"

Elijah describes the mechanics, and I try to listen. I'm really better at picking stuff up while doing it.

Finally, as we get our ice creams and Elijah still hasn't said the girl's name, I decide I can't put it off any longer.

"Uh, so, I know you were in my class, and it's not that you're not memorable, or anything like that, but.. I admit, I forgot your name. Will you remind me?" I blurt.

"It's Emma. I should have introduced myself, I apologize." she says.

"No, that's okay." I say, deeply relieved to have it over with.

Emma. The name matches her, self assured, pretty, smart. She seems smart anyway, keeping her cards close and hiding what she thinks of me behind a wall of politeness.

We settle down on a bench and talk about where we're from for a bit, which schools we went to and where we were born.

"Do you have any siblings, Elijah, Caleb?" asks Emma, licking her melting mint chocolate chip ice cream.

She's the only one who has any left, me and Elijah finished ours.

"Two older brothers. They're living in another city now. They got work a long time before me, mom had to kick me out to get me to get a job." Elijah says.

He's much more talkative now. The awkwardness has mostly dissolved.

"Geez, that's harsh!" Emma says, wincing sympathetically.

"I have a younger sister. She moved out when she was eighteen." I say.

"Why so young?" Emma asks idly.

I don't really want to talk about it. The whole thing was a mess, her moving out unexpectedly, coming out to Mother and Father as she took her last bag of stuff out, Mother blowing up at her as she got into the cab, the explosive mood afterwards as they talked about her.

That was what made me realize I needed to move out.

"My parents are kind of strict." I say, then quickly move on to, "What about you, Emma?"

She smiles slightly, unconsciously, and my stomach flutters.

"I have two older brothers and two younger sisters. They're all lovely." She pauses to finish her ice cream, putting the bottom of the cone into her mouth whole and crunching it up quickly. "We're all still living at home. It's cheaper, and we get to spend more time together." she says.

"That sounds nice." I say.

If my parents weren't the way they are, I wouldn't have moved out, either. I could really do without the stress of worrying how I'm going to pay my rent.

There's silence for a minute, but not an awkward one.

"How about Elijah introduces us to his game tomorrow evening? Is that good for you guys?" Emma asks, unlocking her car.

Elijah nods.

"Yeah."

"Good for me." I say.

It's not like I have anything else going on. I don't know anybody, and my other job I do best at later hours.

Emma drives me home first, and waits until I'm inside the apartment complex to drive away, which strikes me as a polite person thing to do- of course, she could just be making sure it's really my place.

After I get inside I remember that I dressed business casual today to make a good impression, and I take off my tie. Seeing how everyone else was dressed, I don't need to do that tomorrow.

I lay back on my bed, spacing out for a moment. Emma's face appears in my mind.

She was a bit more talkative by the end. Maybe I can convince her that I'm not the jerk I used to be.