I picked a rom-com. I wanted to see a documentary, but I wanted to choose whatever Marissa was most likely to enjoy the most. I’m sitting on a bench outside of the movie theater, wiping my sweaty hands on the underside of my pants. I’m so nervous I could scream.
I suddenly see Marissa walking towards me from the end of the street, and suddenly all my fears fade away. I’m almost shocked, as if somewhere deep down I couldn’t quite believe she would show up.
“Hi,” Marissa says, and wraps me in a hug. I’m lost for words. She’s wearing a light pink dress with matching heels, and she looks unbelievably stunning. She’s wrapped herself in a knitted white cardigan, and her deep brown locks are tumbling romantically over her shoulders. She looked like the kind of girl who was starring in her own movie, but would never know it herself.
“So, um…” I say, motioning towards the theater. “Do you want to go in? I’ve got the tickets, and then I was thinking we could go to the Thai place next door for a bite to eat after, if you like…and if you—”
“That sounds wonderful,” Marissa says, and takes my hand as we walk through the door. I feel my heart leap up in my chest, and I never want her to let go.
Is it early for hand holding? By normal standards, yes, probably, but we know each other well—and we’ve liked each other nearly just as long.
We sit next to each other near the middle of the theater, me on the left and Marissa on the right, just like in Biology. It feels familiar again somehow, and my nerves start to fade away.
The trailers play and I watch the emotions play across Marissa’s face with each one…she shows concern during the dramas, she sighs at the leading men, she beams at the comedies…she is so lovely and so human in all she does that I can barely breathe.
The movie starts, and it’s cliché, and trite, and we both know it. Marissa knows it, but she lets herself fall in love with the characters in the story anyway, because she’s that kind of person…she laughs and swoons along with them. I start wondering if I should hold her hand, or try to put my arm around her, but she’s already done it for me…halfway through the film she nestles herself into my chest, sighing with contentment, and I’m terrified she’ll hear my heart beating with frantic excitement in her ear.
The movie comes to its predictable conclusion, something melodramatic involving a kiss in the rain and rose petals scattered on a hardwood floor. It’s nothing like real life, and everyone in the theater is eating it right up.
Marissa smiles up at me, and we share the same thought:
This. This is better.
I don’t think anybody walks out of high school without a bit of smug satisfaction at the fact that there are a few people that they’ll never be forced to be in the same room with again.
Ella Lawrence was at the top of that list. But then again, here we were.
It’s an obnoxiously hip bar, the rare place that makes me feel like I’m too old to be there. It’s filled with hipsters and shots that glow in neon colors under the lights. It’s exactly the kind of place, I think with a hint of annoyance, that Ella would chose. It was the kind of bar people over twenty-five only enter if they are desperately trying to prove to someone else that they are up with the times. Ella had always put her reputation first, and must be trying to impress Marissa. This bar was exactly the kind of place that a Buffalo native visiting Seattle for the first time would pick to try and impress her friend who lived there.
“Why are we meeting Ella here again?” I ask, as Marissa ducks behind a man with a long red beard. “I mean…it’s a little early for me to be meeting your friends, isn’t it?”
Marissa laughed, as if she had completely forgotten Ella’s role in our past. “Don’t be silly, you remember Ella at least a little bit, right? It’ll be like a big high school reunion.”
“Or Carrie.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
After a few minutes we see Ella walk in, teetering on hot pink heels that look too tight for her feet. Her hair is dyed bleach blonde and her face is caked with makeup, so much so that she probably would look younger without it. Her dress is a striking shade of bright red, one that Marissa could pull off like a model but that washes Ella out completely. Overall, she gives the impression of trying way too hard for her own good. I suppose it’s true what they say, that some people really do peak in high school. I just didn’t think I’d ever see one of them up so close.
“Marissa!” Ella practically shrieks, wrapping her up in a hug once she finds our table. I stand off to the side awkwardly, waiting to be introduced. Or, reintroduced, I should say.
“You look amazing,” Ella gushes, looking her up and down. “Marissa Hayes, living in the big city. We should have known you’d be working for someone like Johnathan Torver one day, what with all that time you spent studying while the rest of us partied. Damn! Look at you!”
Marissa smiled politely. “Thanks, Ella,” she bit her lip. “You look great too.”
What a liar.
Marissa suddenly remembered that I was behind her. “Oh, Ella, you remember Kirk Atkins, right? From Buffalo? He’s a lawyer at Torver, we work together.”
“Oh, yes,” Ella says, studying me carefully. “Who could forget. You two were the talk of the town for a while.”
It’s the perfect opportunity for Marissa to casually bring up the fact that, oh yeah, we’re dating, but instead she buries her face in the menu, studying the wine list.
“So, what do you do now?” I ask Ella, and she looks up at me as if I’ve just randomly asked her what kind of toothbrush she uses instead of the basic question most people use these days to open conversations.
She bites her lip and thinks. “Ya know…stuff.”
I nod politely and look over at Marissa, wondering if she’s surprised by what a mess Ella seems to have turned into since high school. However, she seems unfazed, as if Ella is still the prom queen she was all those years ago. From what I can tell, she seems unemployed, and unmarried…I guessed she was still living off her parent’s money.
“What do you do?” Ella asks, as if she’s countering an insult.
“Like Marissa mentioned already, I’m a lawyer at Torver Corporation,” I say, and Ella looks bored.
The conversation diverts to what Marissa has been up to since high school, and what I’ve been up to since high school, and Ella still shares nothing, probably feeling inadequate and obviously very annoyed by it. Hell hath no fury like the tables being turned on a prom queen…even I knew that.
“You were pretty weird back then,” Ella says to me, as if it’s an objective fact.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, laughing it off politely.
“I mean it,” Ella says, and Marissa just stares at us both blankly, as if she’s watching a car crash. “I remember the things people used to say about you…you weren’t exactly well liked.”
The words well you weren’t exactly well liked, either nearly slip off my tongue, but I keep quiet. I had to be the better man here.
“Well, I’m happy now,” I said. “And that’s all that matters.”
Marissa looks desperate to change the subject. “Has anyone seen that new show with the detectives who—”
Ella cuts her off immediately. “There was a point where I remember you not having very many friends at all, actually.” She takes a sip of her mojito and slams it down on the table. “So, I mean, there must have been something wrong with you.”
I grip my glass so hard I’m afraid it’ll crack in my hands. “I was a shy kid, but I was okay,” I said, trying to remember that Ella’s words probably came from a deeply insecure place. “I had a lot of good friends in high school though. They were great guys, and we had a lot of fun.”
“A bunch of fucking nerds, if you ask me,” Ella says, scoffing as she bites down on a carrot stick. “I have no idea why Marissa ever sunk to the level of dating you. We all thought she was pathetic, for a while.”
“That’s enough reminiscing, I think,” Marissa said. “What do you guys think of these empanadas? There’s not enough stuffing in them, if you ask me.”
We both stared at Marissa harshly.
“Jake had the funniest nickname for you in high school, Kirk,” Ella said. “What was it again?”
“You know what,” I said. “I’m tired, I think I’m going to leave.”
“Pity,” Ella said, sarcastically raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, but you’re my ride,” Marissa said, only now starting to realize how much she was pissing me off.
“Yeah,” I said. “I am. So, you can come with me now, or you can call a cab.” I turned around and walked out of the bar, shoving the door open and storming off to the parking garage.
I heard the clacking rhythm of heels behind me and saw Marissa running towards me. “Kirk, wait,” she said, but I didn’t turn around. I walked among the rows of cars in the dingy garage until I found mine, leaning up against it as I waited for Marissa to catch up.
“Kirk,” Marissa said, running up to face me. “I’m sorry Ella was so rude, she’s always been kind of a bitch, and—”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said sarcastically, shoving my hands into the pockets of my coat. “But you could have told her.”
“What?”
“Oh please, Marissa,” I said, trying not to yell. “This? Again? Ella, again? I should have known.”
“Kirk…”
“First of all,” I said, “You were very good at managing to not mention the fact that we’re dating, no matter how many opportunities presented themselves—”
“I’m sorry, I forgot, I just—”
“Bullshit,” I shook my head.
“Look,” Marissa said, “We can go back, and I’ll tell her everything, I promise.”
“That’s not the worst part,” I said. “You know what the worst part was? Having to hear a girl who bullied me all through school, the girl who, in case you forgot, Marissa, ruined our relationship the first time around, tell me all the horrible things I had to hear from people growing up, all over again.”
“Kirk,” Marissa said, putting a hand on my arm. “That was high school, it’s in the past, okay? Look at you now, you’re rich, you’re handsome, you’re a lawyer at a huge company, you—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, pulling my arm away from her. “And you know why? Because it doesn’t matter how much money I make, or how much muscle I put on, or how successful I am…all those years of getting picked last, of sitting alone at lunch? That’s still in there…and that never really goes away.”
Marissa stared at me, her eyes watering.
“I had to sit there and go back to that. I had to hear those words again, Marissa,” I slammed my hand down on the Jaguar. “And I don’t care that Ella said them…what hurts…what hurts is that you didn’t defend me. You didn’t say a word for me, or against her. You just sat there.”
“Please…” Marissa pleaded softly, and I knew she knew we were done.
“You know, I really thought high school was over, you know?” I said, getting into the car. “But I guess some people never change.”
I drove off, tears welling up in my eyes, leaving Marissa standing there alone.
I should have known.