Stepping Out : Young Adult Romance Books (A New Adult Romance Story "Swanson Sisters Series" : Book 2) (4 page)

Alicia
was surprised that her thoughts had returned to her dinner with Howard again and again. She reviewed their conversation and kept thinking about how he said he wanted her to call so he could ask her out on a date. She did have his number.

All through her classes her mind kept wandering to the matter of calling Howard. At first she liked that he was willing to leave it up to her.
Then she was annoyed that he didn’t take that opportunity to ask for her number. Her mind came full circle back to her world where no distractions could be permitted.

By the time she returned to her room,
Alicia was angry. She had wondered over the years how her mother had come to be such a bitterly unhappy person. At what point were her life’s choices taken from her? She had thought it might have been some big momentous event, such as a pregnancy that caused her to choose marriage over a career but the older she got, the more Alicia realized that could not be the case.

Beyond the logistics of such a wedding which
Alicia had explored in depth, Alicia had not been the reason for her mother to remain unhappily at home for years. Her mother could have done anything she wanted. She could have gone back to school, opened her own business, used her education….

Alicia
’s mind slipped over all the thoughts and explanations so many times that they were nothing more than background noise to her own thoughts.

After one date that was a pretty casual date with Howard, it came to
Alicia. She suddenly saw how it could happen. It was nothing momentous after all. A person could become swayed from their chosen path with a series of minor choices.

Calling
Howard was one of those minor choices. It would only be polite to call him and thank him for dinner. That was just common courtesy. But if she called Howard, she was taking the first deliberate step and that could change everything.

If she called
Howard…. Alicia fell into a troubled sleep, angry at the situation she was in. She woke up a little less angry. However, she knew it would be another distracted day for her and it was nearly noon when she realized that her anger was still with her, still simmering under the surface.

She was sitting on a bench, a bottle of water in one hand and a half a sandwich in the other hand, trying to regain her normal sense of equilibrium. Usually sitting outside and carrying out her own version of meditation helped her shut out the noise of her own thoughts.

She was aware of someone sitting down next to her but that was not unusual. The bench didn’t have her name on it and usually other students sat next to her and they just ignored each other. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing slowly and mindfully.

“Are you sleeping?” the person beside her asked and her eyes flew open.

“Howard!”

“You were sleeping.” He grinned at her.

“No. Just trying to untangle the knots in my brain.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “Nourishing body and mind. It’s a healthy thing to do.”

“So is calling me. That is a very healthy thing to do.”

“I did intend to call you and thank you for dinner. I had a lovely time.”

“So did I.”

For all of their talking in the restaurant, they were having a difficult time with conversation at the moment. “Maybe we can do it again,” he said.

“Maybe we can.”

“How about tonight? I can pick you up at six.”

Alicia
’s dilemma; and it became crystal clear in that moment, was that making any decision led to a new path in her life. If she said yes, the path could go one way. If she said no, the path could go the other way. If she declined to say yes or no, that was a choice too.

She opened her mouth but did not speak. She felt frozen in time.

“Are you all right?” Howard asked. He looked concerned and actually he did wonder if she was having a seizure of some sort. She was completely immobile, staring at him with her mouth half open.

She nodded her head, a barely perceptible nod.

“Great,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at six. Now all I need is your address.” He had her address, at least the one she had listed in the student records. But he was not willing to let her know that he had put any effort into knowing anything about her that she did not provide willingly.

“I meant, I’m all right.”

“What?”

“You asked if I was all right and I nodded, yes, because I am all right.”

“But I can still pick you up at six, right?”

She didn’t say anything and he said, “Are you afraid to say yes? Is there someone else? Is there something wrong with me? Is my hair messy? Do I have food on my face?”

She dropped her gaze and mumbled. “I have trouble making decisions.”

“No kidding.”

She shrugged as if to say, that’s just the way I am.

“I don’t think it is a good idea for me to make this decision for you, but I can tell you that most decisions don’t have to be written in stone.” He paused. “How about this? We’ll go to dinner together and you can leave anytime you want. Even before they bring the water and the menus. It does not have to be a lifetime commitment.”

Alicia was about to blurt out, “But it might be a lifetime commitment.” She didn’t. He would mistake her meaning. He would think she meant that having dinner with him would set off a chain reaction that would lead to them being together for the rest of their lives.

What she meant was that
allowing herself to be swept into accepting intrusions in her life could become a new way of being and she would run out of time to do the things she needed to do.

“Oh come on, be daring. Besides I have things to tell you about my plan for after graduation.”

She gave him her address and he wrote it down.

Howard pulled up in front of the house precisely at six just as Alicia was emerging from the front door. He got out of his car and walked toward her and gave her a hug. Then just as casually as he gave her the hug he guided her to the car and opened the passenger door for her.

“So where would you like to go for dinner?” He asked.

“Haven’t you figured out yet,” she said, “I really hate making decisions.” Alicia surprised herself by making a joke at her own expense.

“I thought it was just the big decisions that were difficult for you. Big decisions like whether or not to go out to dinner with me.”

“Well I kind of felt that I had to. It just seems simple courtesy after you told me you had new post-graduation plans.” Their tone was light and the comments were meant to be mildly jocular.

Not so jocularly, Howard said, “
You really do have a hard time to make decisions, don’t you?”

“Apparently so. I had never even thought about it until very recently. I was thinking about it this afternoon after we talked. I think I managed to avoid decisions for most of my entire life. I only study things
that come naturally to me. I don’t live much of a social life. My life just doesn’t call for too many decisions.”

“All right then. You don’t need to making decisions this evening either. Unless you strenuously object, I suggest we go back to the same place we were Sunday.”

Alicia began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was just about to say, but that’s going to put too much pressure on us. What if we don’t have a good time like we did on Sunday? Each of us is going to think that we will have to try harder to be entertaining.”

“Oh no, not that. I will e
nd up feeling like I’m having dinner with mom and dad. Perform Howard. Make us laugh. Make us proud.”

Alicia
said, “I used to think that when I grew up and got away to university that how mom felt wouldn’t affect me anymore. I’m glad to see that I am not alone in feeling that way.”

“Is it how she feels that affects you? Or how she makes you feel?” Howard said.

Oh, Alicia thought, he was overstepping the bounds of polite conversation. She bounced that boomerang back to him, “Is that the way it is with your dad?”

“
A question is not a question if you already know the answer,” he responded. Then, changing the subject abruptly, he said, “I have a better idea. Let’s go to the new place downtown.”

Alicia
didn’t reply so he continued. “If you don’t like to make decisions, there’s always someone else willing to make that for you.” He realized he was taking a chance but he also realized it was a lot easier to focus on her fears then on his own.

“It sounds like you might be more like your father than you realize.”

“What you mean?”

“It seemed to me when you are talking Sunday night that your father
was used to making your decisions for you.” She hesitated then continued, “And that you are used to letting him make them for you.”

“Blunt. And observant.”

“Thank you,” she said demurely. And then she continued, “Small talk isn’t my thing.”

“Nor mine,” he said. “Let’s make a deal. For as long as we are friends, let’s be blunt with each other. Talking to you the other night stirred up an energy in me that I didn’t even know I had.”

“Agreed;
let’s just be as open as possible with each other. I’d like that.”

They were silent for the next few minutes as Howard maneuvered through traffic
to the downtown area. As he pulled into the restaurant parking lot, he said, “Now I feel a tremendous pressure on me to say something witty and meaningful every time I speak to you.”

“As well you should,” she said.
She was smiling.

“Do you think we can take the pressure?” he said.

She ignored his question and said, “Or even worse. What if we get in the habit of saying what’s on our minds and we forget when we talk to other people and tell them exactly what we think.”

“That might not be a bad thing.”

Over dinner, Howard talked about the plan he was developing for his future endeavors. He sketched in the rough version of it on a piece of paper he got from the waiter. It was just the very basics of a plan that involve setting up a small organization that could network with organizations already in place and coordinate the skills needed with the areas that needed each specific set of talent.

“The best part,” he said, “is that I can get started with some of the paperwork already.”

Alicia was about to ask him what his father thought of the idea when she realized that the time had come for her to begin to view her life in a whole new light. Howard was clearly doing this project with no thought of having his father’s approval or thwarting his father’s life plan for him.

He was doing it because this was his passion.

***

It was Saturday night before Howard kissed
Alicia. She had been kissed before, several times. She had even briefly dated two separate boyfriends during high school, one in her first year and one in her last year. She always disliked that time at the end of the date because it was a double edged sword.

The kiss
es had felt good and she’d liked having the boy’s arms around her but after the first few kisses good night, the hands would begin to wander, which had irritated her no end. Now with Howard kissing her and his arms around her, she felt her heart pound against her ribcage and wanted time to stand still.

She wasn’t a teenager anymore but her dating experience had not increased since high school.
Howard pressed his lips against her forehead and asked, “May I see you again?”

She felt her tummy flip and she placed her head on his chest.

She said, “Yes.”

She had talked to him every day since their second dinner date and they had gone out for the third date this evening.
Alicia had crushes and felt attraction to boys and men ever since she was a teenager. She knew that she was attracted to Howard from the very first time she looked into his eyes.

What she had not known was this feeling she could sense growing inside her heart and mind. There were things she wanted to tell Howard, things
she wanted to share with him. He made her feel centered in a way she couldn’t explain and the way he never took himself seriously helped her relax. She was breathing easily for the first time since Sophie left home and Sunday morning when her mother called, Alicia answered the phone and for the first time in living memory she did not have that choking feeling.

No, she explained patiently, she did not want
to visit her parents that afternoon. This had been a ritual of theirs, where her mother called on Sunday and demanded that Alicia visit and Alicia dutifully marched over to their house and relived every miserable feeling from her childhood.

Alicia
and Howard had not made any plans to get together on Sunday. They agreed to see each other again but they had no set plans.

Her mother
said, “Be here around two.”

“I’m sorry mother, but that doesn’t work for me today.”

As expected, her mother began to wail and then demanded to know what could be more important than seeing her own mother, who had sacrificed everything for her. Then she said, “Oh I suppose you’re spending time with some of your fancy nurse friends. You probably think these people are more important than I am; your own mother.”

Alicia
interrupted her mother’s flow of words and said, “Mother. It’s not that I’m spending time with anyone. I just have other plans for this afternoon.”

Her mother spewed invective, and slammed down the receiver.
Alicia knew that daddy would be on the receiving end of her mother’s anger and she felt a certain amount of grief for her mother. But for the past week she had seen her mother through new lenses.

She was
an extremely unhappy woman and there was nothing Alicia could do to alleviate that unhappiness. All she could do was to try to step outside of her own self and embrace the world around her.

She picked up her cell phone and punched in Howard’s phone number. It was the first time that she had ever called him.

“Hey Howard,” Alicia said when he answered, “I was thinking, I’d like to take you out to dinner tonight. There’s a great little burger joint around the corner from where I live. We could walk there from my place; or drive…….your choice.”

There was a long pause.

“Hello, Howard?”

At the other end of the phone line, Howard grinned. “Hey, who is this? It can’t be
Alicia. She’s the woman who never makes decisions.”

“So, is that a yes or a no,”
Alicia laughed.

“Oh it’s a definite yes,” Howard said.

Heart beating wildly, Howard showed up at Alicia’s doorstep in his sports’ car. Before he turned off the engine, she came out looking as lovely as ever and slipped into the passenger’s seat beside him. There were so many thoughts racing through his mind.

“Hey.” He said.

“Hey back.” She smiled at him.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The engine was running, but he didn’t move.

“What’s the matter?” Concern laced her voice. “Have you changed your mind about going out?”

“What? No!”

“Okay. Good.”

He realized then that this wasn’t easy for her and she was nervous. That gave him the confidence to say what he needed to say. He took a deep breath again for courage and let it out.

“So we’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks now,” He began. “And this is the first time I’ve got a call from you.”

She frowned. “Should I not have called?”

“I’m glad you did. But before we go anywhere, I’d like you to know that this is not just a lark for me. I’m serious about you…about us. I would like for us to date.”

She became silent and he began to sweat where he was seated. Had he spoken to early? What if he scared her away?
He decided to go on.

“I’m crazy about you. You keep me centered and give me the courage to go after my dreams. I want to do the same for you too. I know you’re not ready, but I just want you to know that I’m going to keep on trying until you are.”

“Howard?”

Her quiet voice startled him and he turned to look at her.
“Yeah?”

She cupped his face with one hand and gazed into his eyes. “I’d like that.”

“Huh?”

She smiled at him then, “I’d love for us to date.”

He felt joy explode deep inside him at that and he closed his eyes briefly in gratitude. He opened his eyes and leaned forward, closing the gap between them. “You do know how to drive a guy mad.” He murmured.

“I do my best.” She batted her eyelashes at him before his mouth closed in on hers.

Their kiss was sure and filled with promises of the days to come.

End