Still. In the dictionary or wherever pointless information is kept, maybe an encyclopedia, next to ‘letting things go,’ you would not find a picture of me or my name anywhere near that section unless you mistakenly went to the ‘incapable of letting things go’ heading instead. “Are you sure?” I asked.
“No,” Luke said again. Dammit. That was less encouraging.
“Don’t have to be so honest,” I grumbled.
“I do,” he argued lightly. “When it comes to us, we’re—”
Even when things were weird between us, he was trying to be tactful. That was sweet. However, you would also not find me or my name anywhere next to the definition of tactful. “Are you trying to find a way to say awkward and spazzy and weird without insulting me?” I asked.
“Without insulting either of us,” he answered.
“I’m okay with insulting you,” I informed him.
Luke tilted his head up towards the ceiling, a heaven-help-me kind of gesture. “Oh my god,” he breathed out on a laugh.
“Okay, kidding.” Sort of. Mostly. I smiled at him.
“We make a big deal out of things,” Luke explained. “That’s how we are. We make things worse, get a bright idea that’s not so bright. We get carried away. We don’t want to do the wrong thing and then we do. I’m not saying we’ll be able to avoid all that, but maybe it won’t be as bad if we’re honest. Does this mean something? I hope not. I don’t know for sure.”
Yeah, but we were normally right next to each other while doing those things. And we could touch and kiss while we screwed things up. “Not everything goes right the first time, yeah,” I agreed. I wanted to end it there, but stupid honesty had me being stupid and honest. “But then the second and third times...”
“There were forces outside our control,” he tried to be reassuring. That was his job. No, his job was to do the worrying, so why wasn’t he? He made it sound like an act of god. That was something put on insurance reports, not something moving and romantic.
“Sounds like an excuse,” I responded.
“I don’t see you pitching anything better.” There was annoyance in his tone.
Oh, I hadn’t meant that critically. Guess I was shooting down all his ideas, but I was mostly just talking out loud. “You’re the pitcher,” I joked weakly. Baseball.
He sighed. “We shouldn’t pretend this is great, but it might take time.” He seemed sincere, looking at me fondly, even after all the awkwardness.
Luke had more experience than me and I had a quick crazy thought, wanting to ask if he’d ever had problems like this before but then my whole brain started initiating a self-destruct sequence to avoid asking that question and I managed to pull back the words because I didn’t want to implode.
What were we talking about?
“Yeah,” I said, hoping that was a good response.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Luke assured me.
“Yeah.” If asked, I would say I was right all the time ever and everything went smoothly and perfectly without me even having to try. However, I was a liar. It did make sense for us to not get this right immediately. But… “It would be nice if we did get things right sometimes, just for fun.”
“So nice,” he agreed wholeheartedly.
“But I guess it shouldn’t be expected.” Stupid life. “You’re allowed to freak out,” I reminded him. “It was part of our plan.”
“Our plan was that you leave things to me,” he corrected gently. “Let me worry about us. Doesn’t mean I’m contractually obligated to worry.”
“You just have some big shoes to fill, worry wise. It’s like you’re not even trying.”
“I promise I will when it’s time. And now? Not that time yet.” He sounded sure. There he was going back to trying to fix things. He could just be freaked out. We could be freaked out together. How romantic. But maybe freaking out together wouldn’t solve anything.
We made a game plan instead. I wanted Luke to come visit in two weeks. Normally, putting things in writing so to speak and setting the time and the place and whatnot would make me nervous, keyed up for the date and I’d be so worried about getting everything right that I couldn’t help but make everything go wrong. This time, I didn’t feel that. I felt determined. This was going to go great. If not for my sake, then for Luke. I loved him.
We’d been interrupted before. It was always terrible and awkward and disappointing, but it happened. It had just never happened after another terrible and awkward and disappointing experience. This one wasn’t even our fault. And I was at freaking science camp so I shouldn’t even be thinking like this, but I quietly wondered if it was fate. A sign. Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling us this wasn’t meant to be.
There was no actual evidence to support that. It was nothing but my crazy thoughts. Still though. What if?
* * *
