Love With An Asterisk*

Clause 7: Gravity

                I watched as his little body, overwhelmed by a large Spiderman backpack, made its way out of the door. Obviously affected by having to share the interpretation of his drawing with the class, he walked with his head down hands in his pocket. Embarrassed or ashamed? Maybe he even felt guilty for the lack of relationships in his life.

                I wanted to rush to him, swoop him into a hug and let him know everything would be alright. I wanted to tell him that whoever had forgone a chance to be in his life was missing out on one of the greatest opportunities life would ever offer. I would’ve given in to my urges until my memory violently reminded me that I wasn’t his parent and that telling this kid I had just met no more than 3 hours ago something like that would be overstepping my bounds. So instead I just walked several paces behind him as he made his way to a woman. She knelt down beside him with her brown hair blowing in the wind with a genuine look of concern in her eyes for him; she had to be his mother. She brushed her hand across his face wiping away what I had to assume was a tear before wrapping him lovingly in her arms. The gesture was sweet.

                It was only then that I realized how much of a creeper I looked like standing there, and just as I was about to retreat I made eye contact with her. I stood frozen like a deer in headlights. What could I have said? No, I’m not some child molester creepy rapist. I’m just standing here to see if I, the stranger that your child just met about 3 hours ago, could offer some sort of assistance in comforting him. Yea, that wouldn’t go over well.

                The more I stood there, the more I obviously looked like a creep because the oddest of looks crossed her face as she looked at me as I stood there mulling over the thousands of things I could say in order to land myself in prison. Luckily, I didn’t have to use any of them, because Caleb had made his way over to me, dug to his hand into my pocket and started looking for his candy.

                “Hey! Did you eat them all?” He said to me with those big eyes.

                “Caleb,” his mom said, “You can’t just go around digging into people’s pockets like that. You don’t even know this man.”

When she said that I realized that she couldn’t’ve possibly been his mother, her voice had yet to mature. And from her demeanor and size I noticed that she had to be no more than 16 or 17 years old. Not to mention her style, she had on shorts, and a cut up t-shirt with a band on it, bangles, and a ponytail that had to be done by a preschooler Caleb’s age.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“Yeah!” Caleb said, “This is my friend Monroe.”

I could see as the wave realization washed over her. I know it may have seemed smug, but after Caleb didn’t realize who I was on the playground I was glad that she did. That someone did because for the oddest of reasons the fact that this little boy didn’t know me had severely scarred my celebrity complex. I was starting to think that maybe I wasn’t as famous as I thought I was, which wouldn’t have been an entirely bad thing, but it would’ve been a rude awakening that I wasn’t ready for. His impact was too great on me.

“Oh my goodness! You’re Monroe Bennett! I cannot believe this!” She squealed. “My boyfriend is going to die! Literally die.” She whipped out her phone and was by my side before I could even blink. “Can you take a picture with me?! He’s not going to believe me if he doesn’t have hard core evidence.”

She snapped the picture before I could respond and when we looked at it I was half blinking and looking like an idiot. “Okay okay okay! Wait! Let’s take another one. I don’t want him to think I’m an idiot or crazy or something,” I laughed.