I’m early. I know I’m early, but I couldn’t wait. I check my watch again.
We never talked. We never texted. We never said anything about spring semester and what would happen the Monday morning that classes started.
Yet, here I wait like a fucking puppy waiting for its owner to take it out for a pee. I circle around, wondering if she will show up. It’s been five weeks. A lot can happen in five weeks. She could have a goddamn ring on her finger for all I know. That shit happens a lot around the holidays.
I told my mom about her.
I told my mom about a girl for the first time. Ever. My mom simply sat and grinned at me the entire time. I think it took me an hour or more to tell her everything I wanted to get off my chest. Then I told her what I did about school. Something I haven’t told anyone. Not even Baylor. She hugged me. My mom hugged me and said she was proud of me. The congressman, on the other hand, will have a coronary when he finds out. So I didn’t tell him—on my mom’s advice. Now I know how she’s put up with him for so many years. Selective information sharing. She’s a smart one, my mom.
I check my watch. Two minutes after eight.
Crap. She’s never late.
I’ll wait three more minutes and then I’ll go on with my morning run. I mean, I’m not that desperate. I’m not about to wait around all day.
I check my watch again.
Okay, I’ll wait ten minutes. But not a minute longer.
Pussy.
At ten after eight, I reluctantly break into a slow jog away from Fetzer Hall. It doesn’t mean anything, her not coming. We didn’t discuss it. We didn’t plan it. Maybe she’s just settling back in this morning. Or maybe her flight was late.
“Miss me, McBride?” I hear from behind.
I briefly close my eyes. I’m not sure what this strange feeling is in my chest. It’s like my lungs have been re-inflated after not being able to breathe.
“No,” I say, finding it impossible to hide my face-splitting smile.
“Liar,” she says.
“Yes,” I respond. And just like that, we’re Baylor and Gavin again, running as if we never missed a beat. As if I didn’t spend thirty-four agonizing days fantasizing about her while staring at those stupid pictures she took on my phone. As if I didn’t purposefully leave my phone behind most of those days to reduce the temptation to text her. As if I didn’t google Maple Creek, Connecticut on my laptop just to feel like I learned something about her world.
Damn. I resist the urge to reach down and make sure I’m even in possession of a pair of balls anymore.
We stare at each other out of the corner of our eyes. She blushes. I laugh. We run.
She’s gotten faster since last month. She must have been really pushing herself. Was she doing that for me, I wonder? I try to inconspicuously look at her left ring finger to make sure there’s nothing there, but she keeps moving it so I can’t get a good look without being painfully obvious.
Okay, here goes.
“Did you tell what’s-his-name about our runs?”
“Yes,” she says. No laugh. No smile. No elbow.
Crack.
The goddamn thing just splintered and fragments of it are stabbing me. I stop running. “For real?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah.”
“Well, what did he say?”
“I told him and then we broke up,” she says.
Hope hits me square in the chest, taking my breath away before my heart starts beating again.
“He broke up with you, Baylor?” I ask, a little too incredulously.
“No. I broke up with him,” she says. “But it was more of a mutual thing, really. We are better as friends.”
“So, you’re still friends then?” I ask, not quite knowing if I like the idea of ex-asswipe being in her life after being her boyfriend.
“Of course. Chris will always be my friend,” she says. “You don’t have a problem with that, right?”
Well, what am I supposed to say? I have Karen, the queen bitch of all girl-intimidators, on my coattails twenty-four-seven so I can’t really complain about what’s-his-name.
“What? No, of course I don’t,” I lie through my teeth, hoping my pants don’t catch on fire.
She turns off when we get to her dorm. “See you Wednesday, McBride,” she says, jogging up the stairs.
“Not if I see you first, Mitchell.”
She gives me a confused look as she heads into her building, but I just wave and keep running.
Spring is our off-season. We still have occasional games with other schools, but they are scrimmages really, just to keep our skills fresh. We workout or run every day. We have practice three times a week. But for the most part, nights and weekends are free. I love the off-season. And I love that I have so much free time to put my new plan in place. The plan that gets Baylor to go out with me.
This is all new. I’m in virgin territory here. I’ve been with dozens of girls, but never one that I’ve wanted a relationship with. I’m not exactly sure how this goes. What I am sure about is that I don’t want to fuck this up. It has to be perfect. Because she is perfect.
I purposefully walk in a few minutes late to Philosophy 101. It’s a huge class in one of the largest auditoriums on campus. Because of this, I know most students like to sit in the back and there will only be seats left down in front. So as the TAs hand out syllabi, I casually walk down to the front, having already spotted Baylor in the sixth row. Sixth row—she’s a good student then. I excuse myself as I squeeze past several people to find a seat in the middle of row three. After I sit down, I turn around just enough to see Baylor’s jaw dropping into her lap. I wink. She blushes. We smile.
“You knew we had a class together, didn’t you?” she asks, on our way out an hour later. “I thought you acted strange this morning.”
“How could I possibly know that, Baylor?” I feign innocence.
“Well, then why are you taking a freshman level class?”
“Because I need an easy A,” I reply. “I have a tough schedule and I’m going to need the break.”
“Oh,” she says, accepting my explanation. We emerge from the building into a blast of arctic air. All I want to do is put my arm around her to warm her as she shivers. But, that’s not part of the plan. I have to stick to the plan. She points in the opposite direction from where I’m headed. “I have to get to Comp Two now. I only have a fifteen minute break.”
Of course, I know this since I have a copy of her schedule in my back pocket.
“See you Wednesday,” she says, as she walks away.
“If you say so, Mitchell,” I tease.
She glances back and rolls her eyes at me.
My plan couldn’t have come together any better. Five days a week. I’ll see her every weekday all semester, and if I’m lucky, I can work in some weekend study time on top. My advisor worked hard to fit my new schedule around the two classes I wanted to take with her, assuring we’d have face time on a regular basis. Yes, I’ll admit, being a college athlete does come with perks. As in priority class registration.
So on Tuesday, when I walk into her Film Studies class, Baylor laughs. Out loud. Shit. That throaty laugh of hers hits me right in the balls, doubling me over with the incessant need to make her do it again.
I slip into the empty seat next to her. We try to focus on our professor, but if all the doodling in her notebook is any indication, I’d say she’s experiencing as much sexual tension sitting two feet away from me as I am with her.
“Tough schedule, eh?” she says on our way out.
I shrug. “Hey, I heard we have to write a lot of papers in this class. That’s tough,” I say. “We also have to watch a shit-ton of movies. I think we should set up a schedule now.”
“A schedule for what?” she asks.
“For movie watching,” I say. “Thursday nights good for you?” I would have suggested Friday or Saturday, but that would seem too forward and date-like and I have to stick to the plan.
“Oh,” she says, surprised. She looks down at the long list of movies on the syllabus. “You want to watch these together?”
“Yeah, why not?” I ask. “It would make watching”—I look at her list—“uh, ‘Citizen Kane’ a little more bearable, don’t you think? Is that even in color?”
She smiles over at me. “Thursdays work for me.”
Yes! Part two of my plan is falling into place.
“Uh, Gavin,” she says, her face quite serious now, “aren’t you going to fall behind in Poli Sci if you take so many electives?”
“They aren’t electives, Baylor,” I tell her. “I’m no longer a Political Science major.”
Her eyes go wide. “What? Really? When did this happen?”
“Some deeply philosophical chick I know said something about me regretting my entire existence if I didn’t follow my dreams,” I explain. “So, I thought, what the hell. And the fact that it’ll really piss off my dad—that’s just an added bonus.”
“Oh, my God, Gavin! You switched to Film Production?” Her eyes sparkle in delight. It’s worth having to go back and take some crappy classes just to see this look on her face. Like she’s proud of me. Like I could actually be something without living in the shadow of my father’s aspiring political career. It’s the same look my mom had when I told her.
“Well, the correct title for the degree I’ll earn is ‘Bachelor of Fine Arts in Filmmaking,’ but, yeah—Film Production,” I say, mirroring her jovial expression.
She leans in and wraps her arms around me. “That’s wonderful, Gavin. You must be so excited!”
I was excited about the switch in my major. Now I’m excited that she’s found a reason to throw her arms around me. I happily pull her against me for a hug while thinking about how long I can keep her here without it seeming inappropriate and creepy. I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. She doesn’t seem in any big hurry to pull away, either. I put my nose in her hair and inhale that fruity scent that I’ve craved since the day I first smelled it—maybe even long before that. My body is humming with electricity as I savor the way we fit together. She is much shorter than I am. I’d be surprised if she’s anything over five four, but the way her head tucks perfectly under my chin, and the way my arms can wrap around her body, enveloping her into me completely, it just feels . . . right.
Finally, after a too-long-to-be-just-friendly-but-not-long-enough-to-be-otherwise-significant hug, we part, but still stand close. I look down at her and I swear her eyes have taken on the emerald color of the shirt I’m wearing. She’s standing that close. She should always stand this close. Her eyes should always reflect what I’m wearing. Kind of like my own personal mark on her. I realize that I’m staring down at her and she’s blushing.
“You’re tall,” she says, attempting to break the unbridled sexual tension.
“Maybe you’re just short,” I quip.
“Nope.” She shakes her head. “I’m the perfect size, McBride.”
That you are. Perfect for me, I think.
I walk her to her next class. I don’t have to ask her where it is.
She doesn’t ask how I know.
“You what?” Karen all but screams at me when I explain why I didn’t show up for the government class we were supposed to take together.
“You heard me,” I say. “I changed my major. I never liked Political Science. I’m going to do something I want to do rather than something I’m expected to do for once.”
“Your dad will flip out,” she says, disapprovingly. She narrows her eyes at me. “Gavin McBride, does this have anything at all to do with ‘Thing 2’?”
“No . . . yes . . . I don’t know, Karen. I guess it does in a way. But not like you’re thinking. She isn’t a Film major, so it’s not like I’m doing it to get in her pants or anything.” Well, not entirely. “And would you quit calling her ‘Thing 2,’ she has a name. It’s Baylor.”
“Baylor?” she spits out. “What kind of name is Baylor? Do her parents have some kind of psycho-obsession with football or something?”
I’m actually kind of impressed that Karen would even associate the two, but given we grew up only an hour from the university that bears her name, it’s understandable.
“Karen, you don’t have to be a bitch all the time, you know.”
“Ugh!” She stomps a foot. “I’m just trying to look out for you, Gavin,” she says. “You have a family name to uphold.”
“I’m well aware of that, Karen. You don’t need to remind me,” I say. “My father does a pretty good job of that every time he talks to me.”
“I thought we all got along so well over break, didn’t you?”
“That’s just because I’m getting better at handling him,” I say.
“So, what, you’re changing your major and now you’re going to go off and date little Miss Thing? Your dad wouldn’t approve of that either,” she so willingly points out.
I shake my head at her. “I don’t really give a shit what my dad approves of anymore, Karen. And if you are going to be such a bitch about it, you know good and well where the door to leave my house is.”
Tears well up in her eyes. Shit. I didn’t mean to make her cry.
I walk over and put my arms around her. “Karen, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings. But you’re going to have to learn to respect my decisions, okay?”
She holds me tightly, crying into my shoulder. I realize how much taller she is than Baylor. It’s not as easy and comfortable holding Karen against me, and the store-bought tits her mom got her for her eighteenth birthday push hard against my chest. My hands press against the bony outline of the ribs in her back, and all I can think of is how soft Baylor was beneath my touch.
I know on the outside Karen and I are the perfect couple. Kids in high school used to refer to us as ‘Ken and Barbie.’ I love Karen, I really do. But she can be a lot to take sometimes. Her superficial tendencies often overcome the sweet girl that I used to play doctor with in third grade. I will never give up hope that someday that girl will emerge once again.
“I d-don’t want to l-lose you, Gavin,” she stutters.
“You’re never going to lose me,” I assure her. “We will always be friends. You’re an important part of my life.”
“Just not important enough to date, apparently,” she says, sniffing through her sobs.
And there we have it. The elephant in the room has finally reared its surgically-altered face.
“Karen,” I hold her tight. “I love you. You know that, right?”
She nods her head into my shoulder.
“Maybe if it were under different circumstances, we would date. But I don’t want to ruin our friendship. I’ve seen it happen,” I say. “And I really want to see where this thing goes with Baylor.”
She hiccups into my shirt. “Why her?” she asks. “What’s so special about her?”
I could list a hundred things that are special about Baylor. But it’s the one that stands out the most that really matters. “She lets me be myself.”