There were none parts of the body I wanted him to mess with. I was in a committed relationship… I wasn’t even sure I wanted my boyf to be all up on me at the moment. No, we could rally!
It might suck but we can handle it. I sent to Luke. From my fingertips to god’s ears. Unless I decided god didn’t exist. I forgot where I landed on that.
Yeah, we can, he replied.
Texting instead of calling might have been a gamble but it helped. I was doing two things at once, so I didn’t have the energy to freak out when I was also taking notes on the stuff I hadn’t already covered.
Luke and I had two common practices in our relationship, the methods and formulas that were unique to us. The first approach involved ignoring a problem and hoping it went away, despite all evidence to the contrary that doing that would only make everything a million times worse, and then being totally surprised and freaked out when the terrible avoidance plan was predictably terrible and didn’t work at all.
That would be a long name, so basically it was the un-scientific method.
And then there was getting a bright idea that was actually dumb but being too insane/worried to realize it was dumb and thinking it was brilliant. And when the totes brill plan didn’t work, clearly it was everything else that was wrong and not the plan, which was clearly stated to be brilliant, so the important thing was to just keep trying the thing that didn’t work until it did and making everything a thousand times worse.
Another pretty unscientific method. I didn’t know which one we were doing this time. Guess I just had to wait and see. Joy. How had this become my life? Things between my wonderful boyfriend and I kept getting more and more weird, and the situation was apparently so dire that my scariest friend Lydia had been nice to me.
Hey. Lydia had been nice to me. She’d said…
Oh, I am so smart. Totally baller. And no one is allowed to make fun of me for saying that because it’s true and I deserve to call out my mad skills.
* * *
For reasons that I chalked up to even smart people could be dumb sometimes, Morgan and I hit up the vending machines on our break and got a ton of junk food instead of going to the dining hall and actually eating lunch.
I ate some chips on my bed while Morgan had a death wish—and also had terrible taste in snacks because they were eating peanut crackers that were super processed and nowhere near as good as taking actual peanut butter and crackers and putting them together in real time—and sat on my roommate’s bed. At least roommate was in the dining hall.
“Hi dummy,” I greeted Lydia with cheerfully when I called her. Morgan rolled their eyes.
“That’s what you’re going with?” Lydia’s unimpressed voice asked.
“Yep,” I said while Morgan held up the crackers in an offering and I made a face and shook my head. They threw gummy bears at me in response.
“Be sure,” she warned. “I’m being merciful, giving you a chance to change your mind.”
“No, I’m good.” I gave Morgan a thumbs up because I liked gummy bears.
“There’s so many things I could make fun of you for right now and that’s just in general. The specific stuff that’s happened recently? A whole new terrible can of worms.” Rude. True. Still rude.
Didn’t deter me though. “I’m here trying to learn and be smart, I can’t be expected to be the brains of the operation there—” Morgan didn’t know what I was talking about but rolled their eyes again, which was also rude.
“Don’t worry, no oneever expected you to ever have things figured out, you are so—"
“I know what’s up with Alicia,” I interjected smoothly. I opened my mouth wide and Morgan tried to throw gummy bears into it. The candy hit me in the face. Eh. Of all the things to be hit in the face by, candy wasn’t bad.
“Ryan, I love you so much.” Lydia was smart too. At least smart enough to change her tune when she heard that. “You are so… Ryan,” she finished lamely.
“Almost had it there, I felt it.” Would she be able to compliment me? My hypothesis was no. Let’s test it! If she could do it, I got to feel good about myself. If she couldn’t, I got to feel bad about her. A good time for me either way.
“Sometimes you walk and don’t trip over your feet,” Lydia tried. “And you’ve only had 17 years to perfect walking, so that’s better than nothing.” Guess she couldn’t say something nice about me. At least my hypothesis was correct; I’m so smart.
“Stop trying to compliment me,” I told her. It was entertaining but that was enough. If that was her best effort, I probably didn’t want to know the rest.
“You have hair,” she said in a determined voice. Oh my god.
“Okay, bye,” I told her. “Have fun with your crazy girlfriend.” Déjà vu. Not that I’d ever said that sentence to her before.
“Ryan, wait—" Her tone became urgent.
“Haha, just, that’s what I normally say to Alicia about you.” That’s why it was so familiar.
