93 Sampler (5 page)

▼

        Dinner flows quickly, and I force myself to talk to Chad more. Despite his desire to talk about himself, he doesn’t seem like the worst person.
        I just don’t want to marry him.
        My parents insist that Chad and I share a car, so I soon find myself alone with him.
        “So, who’s the guy?” Chad asks after a few minutes of riding in silence.
        My gaze snaps up to meet his. “What do you mean?”
        “I kind of got the impression there’s someone else. Either that or you’re just not interested in me.”
        He doesn’t look upset, but I don’t want to tell him about Ashton; not when I’ve been told to leave him behind me.
        “I just wasn’t expecting you. I thought I’d get a text first,” I say. Technically I’m not lying, seeing as my mother had told me he’d send me a message.
        “I had to reset my phone and lost your number. When I called your parents to ask for it, they asked me to dinner,” Chad explains. “Can’t complain when it means I get spend time with someone as beautiful as you.”
        He leans towards me, but I put my hand on his chest. I didn’t even have to think about it, I’d just reacted.
        “Chad, I don’t know what my parents have told you, but I’m not ready for that,” I almost tell him I’m not going to marry him, but my mother’s words are still in my head.
        I know I’m going to have to at least talk to Chad, though I’m hoping I can keep us at a friendship level.
        Chad looks at me for a couple of seconds, then backs away into his own seat. “Okay, I can respect that. I have your number now, so I’ll call you.”
        I nod, and we say nothing else for the rest of the journey to my place.
        I don’t let Chad walk me to my door. Instead, I leave the car as fast as I can without seeming rude, and practically slam my front door shut when I reach my house.
        “How did your date go?” Jackson asks, and I jump slightly when I realize he’s lying on the couch and watching a movie.
        I take a seat beside him and try to keep myself calm. All my emotions from my date with Ashton and the situation with my parents seem to catch up to me at once, and I can’t help but groan slightly. “Jackson, I’m so screwed.”
        His eyes widen and he pauses the movie. I never groan, never lose my cool, so he knows it must be bad. “Tell me everything.”
        So I do.

▼

        Over the next couple of days, despite Jackson telling me I shouldn’t, I ignore Ashton. He’s texted me a couple of times, and called me once, but I can’t bring myself to reply. I know I should just tell him what’s going on, but I can’t; telling him means it’s official, that I can’t ever see anyone else, that I’m stuck with Chad forever.
        I’ve occasionally replied to Chad, but we have nothing to talk about. He’s constantly talking about his family’s business, and all I do is agree with him and placate him when he has a bad day.
        Somehow I know it’s what my life would be like if I let things play out the way my parents want them to, but every time I consider telling Chad it will never happen, I remember my talk with my mother.
        I have to forget Ashton, I
know
 I do, but why is it so hard?

Carter gave me nothing but a nod during today’s Graphic Design meeting. I haven’t spoken to her all weekend. Since she vanished like a bat out of hell Saturday night, she hasn’t been answering any of my texts or phone calls. I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with our date. I thought, for two people who can’t stand each other, we’d had fun. She’d even given me her phone number. She said she had a meeting with her parents, maybe it didn’t go too well.

        Yesterday and all day today, I had gotten through my anxious feelings about her by thinking I could get to her after Graphic Design, and that she could squash my worries and we’d be well on our way to date number two. However, when I try to catch her at the end of Graphic Design, her tall jock friend, Jackson I presume, is there to pick her up as usual, and they are out of the building before Carter and I even have a chance to speak.

Defeated and unsure of what to do, I return back to my apartment and start making dinner. And by making dinner, I mean popping some ramen noodles into the microwave and hoping they don’t taste as bad as they normally do.

I can’t believe that I’ve turned into the starving artist cliche.

I could afford better food but that would require the help of my parents and I’d like to be more independent than that. So I’ll scarf down high sodium noodles if that’s what I have to do. Besides, I run every morning. That cancels out the unhealthy food, right?

I think about what Carter ignoring me means. If she doesn’t want to talk to me, then fine, that’s her choice and I can’t be mad at her for it. But it seems like I’ll be resorting to dating the regular way. One, I’ve already deleted my
Blinder
 account and app, and two, any girl I find on the app is going to be a major step down from Carter. There isn’t anything wrong with the other girls, I’m sure, but they aren’t
Carter
.

I barely know her but there’s something different about her. It’s the way she looks like she could either break my nose or hire someone to do it for her so she doesn’t mess up her nails. I don’t know what it says about me that I’m attracted to a girl who wears power suits and could kick my ass, but as long as that girl is Carter, I don’t
care
 what it says about me.

The front door opens and Sofia staggers in, pulling me from my thoughts of how I could possibly have a secret dominatrix kink. It’s 5:30 and she’s back from work.

        “Long day?” I ask.

        “Long life,” she answers.

        “I’m making ramen, want some?”

        She looks like she’s rather brush her teeth with razors and heads back toward her room. “Thanks but I think I’ll pass,” she calls loudly to me.

        I go to the fridge to get a bottle of water. “I saw Carter earlier,” I finally let out.

        Sofia comes into the kitchen and picks up a banana. She’s changed into sweats, I notice, and her hair is up in a bun, unlike how it was down just a minute ago. Sometimes I’m half convinced she’s a time wizard of some sort. “How’d it go?” She questions. “You ask her out again?”
        “No,” I explain, “I didn’t even get a chance to talk to her.”

        She frowns. “What? Why not?”

“Well,” I let out a heavy breath, “she was going over important things that GD has coming up this month and she spent the whole meeting talking to the club. I didn’t have a second to get to her before she sped out the room when the meeting was over.”

        She’s chewing on a bite of her banana. “And she’s still not texting you or calling you?”

        “Nope,” I say. The microwave dings and I remove the hot bowl. “I thought the date went good but now, I’m not so sure.”

        “Wait, on Saturday you said she left because she had to see her parents. Maybe something happened.” She’s flipping through the cabinets searching for something to eat. Sofia eats like a 200 pound man. It’s adorable.

        “Yeah that’s what I thought, but why would that make her ignore
me
?”

        An odd expression crosses her face but it’s gone before I can ask her about it. She shrugs. “I don’t know, man,” she tsks. “Maybe she just isn’t feeling it.”

        “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I tell her. For some reason this hurts more than I thought it would. Carter and I only had one date, and it didn’t last very long, but still, I feel like there could be something there. It’s ridiculous and cheesy, I know, but I can’t stop the stab of pain I feel when I think about Carter not wanting to at least give us a chance.

        Sofia notices the upset expression on my face and clasps my shoulder. “Wanna see what awful horror movies are on Netflix? That always cheers you up.”

        The corner of my mouth lifts up. “Okay,” I tell her, “you make the buttery popcorn, and I’ll find the movie with the worst effects and acting we’ve ever seen.”

        Sofia and I are watching a B movie about sharks and twisters, and stuffing our faces with delicious popcorn. “We should put a TV in the waiting room at Cruz’s and only show the worst movies,” I say. Cruz’s Tattoo Parlor is the name of the tattoo shop Sofia and I hope to open once she graduates, with her doing the actual tattooing and business running and me doing the design concepts.

        “Yeah,” she says, “showing shark twister movies will show our customers we’re a trustworthy, legit business.”

        I arch a brow at her. “Most of them will be drunk frat boys. There’s nothing that bothers drunk frat boys except empty kegs.”

        “Point made, grasshopper,” she tells me and we clink our soda cans together.

▲

        When I leave my modern art history class, I’m so busy thinking about how the hell an art major can have so much homework, that I’m not watching my step and nearly plow into someone. “Sorry,” I mutter automatically, before realizing that the person in front of me is Carter.

        Her brown eyes divert and she pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s okay,” she says, and she attempts to speed off past me but this is my first time talking to her since our date. I think I deserve at least a “hello.”

        “Carter, wait,” I say. I have a feeling I’ll say that to her many times in the future. “Can we talk?” I ask. I grab her lightly by the arm and spin her to face toward me. Her eyes are still averted, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why she won’t make eye contact. “Hey,” I whisper.

        The corners of her mouth lift in a shy smile. “Hey,” she says back.

        We’re both quiet.

        The wind blows and she shivers, taking her arm from me and wrapping both arms around herself.

        “How have you been?” I ask.

        “Good,” she tells me. I wait for her to give a reason for why she’s been ignoring me but she remains silent.

        “Carter, look-”

        “Ashton, I have-” she says at the same time before stopping and turning pink. “Sorry, you go first.”

        I take a deep breath and lean back against the wall of the fine arts building. “I was wrong. Before. About you.”

        Her head tilts. “Why do you say that?”

        “Well,” I start, “I used to think you were a stuck up, know-it-all, who thought she was too rich and important to be friends with all us regular folk,” I say in a deep, fake country accent.

        This elicits a small smile from her. “I can’t believe you had such a low opinion of me.”

        “Key word:
had
. And besides, I said I was wrong.”

        Carter laughs. “Oh? I don’t think I believe you, Mr. Lewis,” she teases.

        I don’t stop to consider what I’m doing. I just softly grab both of her hands and look right into her eyes. “Then let me prove it. The Hill County carnival is coming up. Go with me.”

        Her eyes widen in surprise, though I’m not sure why she’s so shocked. Surely she must have known I was going to ask her out on another date. Carter doesn’t respond immediately but continues to look at me. Finally I see the resolve in her. “I would really like that,” she says. “I’ve never been to the county carnival before.”

        Now it’s my turn to be surprised. I suppose she could be from somewhere outside the county, only living here for college, but hearing this still surprises me. The Hill county carnival is one of the coolest thing this area has to offer.

        “Great,” I say. “I’ll pick you up at seven?”

        She looks mildly alarmed at this. “No, that’s okay,” she insists. “I can meet you there. Just text me the address,” she rushes out. “I have to go,” she says immediately after, not giving me time to respond before she heads off toward the parking lot.

        I didn’t get an explanation for her odd behavior, and I’m still just as confused about her as ever. For a moment, I begin to think that maybe I’m being too rash with this thing we have, that I’m not thinking clearly when it comes to her. But then I see her look back at me and grin, her startling eyes piercing straight through to the very core of all that I am, and I know that I could spend every breath until my last trying to make sense of Carter Redford and not complain about a single moment of it.

 
        I’m kicking the heel of my shoe against the pavement, small pieces of dirt flying up each time. I glance at my phone and see that once again, Carter is late. It’s seven oh five , and she was supposed to meet me here at seven. The sun is just now setting and I have to squint every time I check the nearby parking lot to see if she’s finally arrived. Families and couples pass by me, a few people glance over at me, as if they wonder why I’m leaning against the sign that announces it is the entrance to the carnival.

A part of me wonders if Carter has decided to flake on me, if her saying yes to another date was just a fluke. That was crazy, though. I’d seen the look in her eyes when I'd asked her to the carnival. She
wanted
 to be here.

        My phone vibrates and I see I have a text from my mom.

        
Today’s the last day of the carnival. Are u going with Sofia?