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Yes. All the time. My mom often told me I’d be eaten alive in high school and then college if I didn’t learn how to stand up for myself. But I’m not bringing that one up to my roommate. God knows there’s already enough about her personality I wish I had myself, and maybe someday I will.
Right now, however, I don’t need to hear her tell me yet again to grow a pair and talk to Johnny.
“I consider it more being polite than anything,” I say.
“Whatever,” she tells me. “Anyway, I’ve got to get going and it sounds like you’re ready to sit down and eat. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Sounds good,” I tell her. “Have fun.”
“Don’t be afraid to talk to him!” Anna tells me before she hangs up the phone.
“Too late for that,” I mutter to myself, putting my phone on the tray with my food. I’m now using both hands as I walk through the crowded dining room, looking for a place to sit down.
I don’t mean to look so directly over to where Johnny is sitting with his friends, and we briefly make eye contact. My cheeks flush. I can’t see myself, but I feel the heat as they do, and I immediately divert my gaze. It’s so involuntary it’s almost natural for me to look away as soon as our eyes meet.
But, it’s also happening so fast that my mind doesn’t have the time to process that I’m too close to the table I’m passing, and I happen to bump into the side. I hear the gasp from the students who are sitting at the table, and I immediately worry that I spilled their drinks.
“I’m sorry, excuse me!” I cry out, more out of habit of assuming I’m the one in the wrong than out of knowing that I really caused an accident, and that just seems to make the situation worse.
I’m so caught off guard in the moment that as I speak, my voice is a lot louder than I intend it to be, and that attracts the attention of several of the nearby tables. My cheeks are still flaming red, and I’m expecting to recover and dash to the nearest table to sit down and fade into the background as usual, but instead I overcorrect myself as I try to recover from bumping into the table.
This causes me to trip over my own feet, and I pitch forward.
There are several surprised cries from the female students sitting at the table I ran into, which doesn’t at all help the situation for me as I tilt my tray back, trying to save the food from falling to the floor. But, with the soda as full as it is and my brain still telling me I’m making a fool of myself, I can’t help but jerk too hard as I’m trying to fix myself and regain my footing.
Ultimately, this leads to me falling right to my knees, landing practically on top of my tray and pressing my burger directly into my stomach. The soda sprays in all directions as it first dumps on my tray and then the cup flies into the air from the impact of hitting the ground and it too, of course, splashes me right in the face as I’m falling.
I instinctively reach for my phone as soon as I hit the ground, and my cheeks are reminding me how embarrassing this situation is before my brain catches up to what even happened.
For all of two seconds, the room is so quiet it’s deafening. I don’t know if my brain has tuned out the conversation of the tables that are too far away to notice what’s going on, or if everyone has truly witnessed what just happened to me, but either way, I scramble to my feet, the burger still stuck to the front of my shirt for a moment until it, too, falls to the ground.
The stain from the chili is not only huge, but it’s growing, as is the redness from my cheeks across my face.
The entire room erupts in laughter.
Tears of horror and embarrassment spring to my eyes, and the last thing I’m going to do is stand here and be the laughingstock of the entire restaurant.
For another brief moment, I make eye contact with Johnny.
He seems to be the only person in the room who isn’t laughing at me.
I don’t know, as I’m too embarrassed to look around, but I’m also too horrified to stop moving.
I bolt out of the diner and continue running when I get outside.
I’m glad Anna isn’t going to be at the dorm when I get back. I don’t want to explain to her what happened at the diner, nor why I’m crying when I get home.
I’m not hurt from the fall, but my already fragile self-esteem is bruised, and that hurts.
How am I ever going to get Johnny to notice me in the way I’ve been dreaming?
Not as the stupid wallflower who just ate shit in the middle of the diner, but as a girl who would make a fantastic girlfriend?
Bottom line is, I won’t.
And I might as well accept it.
FOUR
