The Advantages of Being a Decent Writer

I sat on the bench outside of the secondary entrance of my school and even though there was a penetrating wind blowing in my direction, a nervous ecstasy warmed me up to where I could barely even feel it. As I was thinking about Phoebe, the book I had given her, and the note that was held within it, a friend of a friend came up to me and asked me what I was doing at that particular moment.

"Well, I'm waiting for my mom to drop off some money for me, my friends and I are going thrifting later. She said she'd be here, what, 2:40? What time is it now?" I asked, checking my phone. "2:41. Whatever. What are you doing here?" I didn't know her name at the time, and I wouldn't find that out until the next day, but it wasn't very important at the time.

"I'm just waiting until the middle school lets out, I gotta walk over there so my mom can pick me and my sibling up," she explained.

"Sounds fun," I said, trying to be interested but just not being able to and, then, without warning, I went into my whole spiel about my situation with Phoebe. 

"I gave this girl I like a book with, like, a love letter in it. But like, a short one," I explained.

"How'd she react to it?" she asked, expecting the worst.

"Well, that's the thing. I left before I could see her reaction, y'know, to go to Social Studies right after I gave it to her because I was just scared, I guess, of what she'd say."

"So I guess you really like her, if you're so nervous."

"I think I'm in love, as corny and lame and pathetic as it sounds, and I think I have been for, like, two years." I looked out at the small field that sat lateral to the entrance. It seemed so peaceful, calm, and relaxed. "Well, she hasn't texted me a thing mentioning the note yet, so it's either she hasn't read it, which I don't think is true, or she has and is just ignoring the matter, which is more likely."

"What are you planning to do?"

"See, all hope is not lost. I don't really wanna text her about it, because it feels like something more important than what texting should be. I wanna see her, but my problem was that I don't see her that much outside of school, so it'd be at least a couple of days since I see her next. But."

"But what?"

"She sent me a snap showing that she is at Mr. Briski's for clinic and since I'm staying after for GSA, I can meet up with her and talk about it."

"That's a good idea. It's really nice to see a guy in love, though. That's not really something that happens nowadays."

"Something like that." At that moment, I got a text from my mom saying that she actually wasn't going to be there until 3:00, meaning that I'd just sat out in the cold for ten minutes for no reason, so I said goodbye to this girl I'd been talking to and headed back up to the GSA meeting. I saw my friends Jocelyn and Elena, who were painting rocks, and I told them about the whole situation. They told me not to stress about it, and yes, to try my best to see her then, but it wasn't the worst if I didn't.

But I just could not stop worrying. It was 2:55, and for the next 5 minutes, I waited in anticipation. The real problem was just about to start, though. Clinic ended at 3:00, the same time at which I was supposed to meet with my mom to get money, which meant I needed to run out front, grab the money, and sprint back up three flights to catch Phoebe on her way out of class. When 3:00 came, I did just that, and it all went successfully until Phoebe told me that she was actually on her way out of the main entrance back down on the first floor. So, I sprinted right back down the stairs, almost tripping once or twice, and thankfully I caught her right as she opened the door to leave.

"Phoebe," I said, a little out of breath, "hi."

"Hi Zack," she said. 

I made some light chit-chat with her before asking about the really important thing, the thing that'd been weighing on my mind for hours: "Did you read the note?"

"Yeah, I did," she paused, "those were some nice words," she said, but I could tell she wasn't being forthright and wasn't saying all of what she meant. 

So I motioned with my hands to her, a circular motion, as if I was trying to summon up the book, just trying to bring it back into the conversation, and when she tried to move on, I said, "But what about the note?"

"What about the note?"

"Y'know."

She laughed a little bit before saying, "Are you asking me out?"

"Yes," I said, not thinking as the words came out of my mouth.

"Yeah," she said, smiling, a big grin that was one of the reasons I'd come to like her so much.

"Really?" I was genuinely shocked that this had actually worked.

"Yeah, really."

And we decided that we were dating right then, something that I'd wanted so badly for two years, so much so that the fact that it was finally happening didn't seem real in the slightest. 

The next night was the homecoming game at the school. Phoebe is much more into sports than I am, so she was actually watching the game while intermittently laughing at the jokes I'd crack, and as our hands intertwined and she explained to me the basic rules of football, everything felt alright.