7. Problem Solving instead of Problem Starting
Way outside of Ryan’s comfort zone.
Ryan
Luke had been the one to break the silence between us last time, so I would get the ball rolling with actually discussing things this time. I had a tactful, appropriate response. What I went with, though, was: Is it less awkward now? Do you still feel weird about the Weirdness? I was in class, so I couldn’t talk to him on the phone.
Calling it the weirdness… He used a series of emojis that I translated to unimpressed.
I’m just checking. Figuring out where we stood. Metaphorically.
I was sitting down. He probably wasn’t. He was probably out working, the sun shining down on him while sweat dripped down his chest. Maybe he was wearing a tank top; I didn’t know if he would take his shirt off at work. I imagined him without one. I wasn’t going to sext in class, there were only around 900,000 ways that could go wrong, but I still needed a nice visual to make it through this conversation.
My boyfriend texted back and my thoughts turned from lust to righteous indignation. Generally, mentioning the awkward thing reminds people of the awkward thing, and even if it wasn’t awkward before, it becomes that way again.
I made a noise and then smiled in a reassuring and not at all terrifying way to the person who looked up at me.
Disagree. I like calling it out, owning the situation, taking away its power— I just kept finding ways to say basically the same thing, texting them one after the other until Luke responded.
Okay, you feel totally calm and at ease now?
Touché. Should we just avoid talking about it? Don’t mention it, pretend everything’s fine? Should I talk about the weather? How about that weather? I floated that idea before and he was against it. Couldn’t just go changing his mind. No, he totally could, then we could never speak of this unpleasantness again… and it would never go away or it would get worse. Yeah, we had to talk about it.
No, sorry, that wasn’t what I meant. We can’t do that, he replied.
Luke, I asked you about the weather. A student a few seats over glared at me when catching me on my phone and I smiled cheerfully at them.
Yeah, some weather, he responded obediently. Then he continued with, We should be talking. Don’t let this push us farther apart. I had been doing a good job of multitasking but that text from Luke sent all my energy towards worrying about our relationship. Farther? We had distance between us? Worse, distance he noticed and I didn’t. Oh god, red alert.
Farther? What? Why? Also all the other question words that I couldn’t think of because I was busy trying not to panic.Walrus! No, that wasn’t one. Well, not like that. Walrus? Still no. My friend Morgan sent me an are you okay look from a few chairs over, stupid assigned seating, and I sent them a tight smile back.
Because we’re in different places, Luke responded.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Oh, you mean geographically. That kind of distance. Right. The panic took over before I could think that one through.
Yes moron. See, we still had such sweet nicknames for each other.
Don’t start with the dirty talk. I’m in class.
I would be taking notes with everyone else, but this was the boring part of our day. Yeah, we got to take two real college science courses, but the experiments and research we were doing was way cooler.
Plus, when I was trying to think of anything other than my relationship to avoid having a meltdown, I may have done most of the legwork for this course. The professor wouldn’t even call on me anymore. Which meant I was Hermione Granger and that was awesome.
Luke didn’t know I was Hermione Granger. You should be paying attention! He texted me.The volume on the ringer was off, so the message didn’t make an insistent sound, but it still came across that way somehow. He was scolding me. Cute.
Luke, I’m a baller. I smiled, which might not have made much sense when the professor was talking about infectious diseases and then my roommate saw me from across the room and gave me a confused look. He was confused now? Just wait. I crossed my eyes and made fish lips, but me doing something that made no sense whatsoever apparently made sense as he accepted that and went back to what he was doing.
Can I make fun of you saying baller? Luke texted. Rude.
No. That was it? No words of praise, no congratulations, no shirtless selfies? That’s it? No words of praise, no congratulations? I left out the shirtless selfies part as that hadn’t gone so well last time.
Oh, you’re really doing well? Awesome!
Had I not told Luke that? Everyone here knew I was the greatest ever. Luke should know too, what with him dating me and all. But I guess I hadn’t told him. So while he assumed I was the greatest ever and was probably doing amazing stuff here, he didn’t know for sure. I hadn’t meant to not tell him, just.
There was some distance lately, not just physical. We were already leaving stuff out. Not on purpose but we only had so much time to talk and then it was hard to remember everything that needed to be said, especially when the Weirdness was foremost in our minds. This could be harder than we thought. And we weren’t sure it was going to be easy in the first place, so. That sucked.
My roommate was glaring at me from across the room now. God, what was that guy’s problem? He had seemed non-threatening for a moment there, but now I wasn’t sure again, so maybe this wasn’t the best plan, but I waved and blew him a kiss. Jeremey’s face reddened and he firmly looked down. Yeah, that totally made the situation better. What if he was homophobic? We slept in the same place. He had access to my hair and my feet and all the other parts of the body I wouldn’t want anyone to mess with.
