When You Come to Me (9 page)

“Yes?” She’d answered with a sigh.

“Let’s go eat somewhere,” Brandon Greene demanded.

“I can’t, I’m studying.”

“Can’t you take a break?”
“Of course, I’m taking one right now, and then I’ll go right back to studying.”

“You’re in the library?”

“Possibly.”
“I’m coming to pick you up,” Brandon Greene told her in a singsong voice.

“You don’t know where I am,” she mocked in a higher singsong voice.

“I can find you.”

“That’s creepy…”

“There’s this new restaurant that I want to try,” he told her.

“I don’t have any money, Brandon.”

“I’ll pay for you…you know that.”

Natalie sighed. “I don’t want to hear about Sophia all night. I’d rather claw my eyes out.”

“Don’t worry about that, Nat. We broke up…”

They went to the Sushi Bar on East Clayton Street that clear, chilly night in mid-October. Just a week prior they’d celebrated her nineteenth birthday in which he’d taken her out for burgers and then to a play at the Holden Theatre in the park about a German and a Jew attempting to be together during World War Two. They’d spent the entire car ride back that night arguing about why their differences shouldn’t have mattered and why they consequently did.

He sat her down first; he sat across from her, authentic Japanese music hailed in the background.

Over six California rolls set before her, she remained silent, stared at him from time to time, took note of the fact that he showed no indication of heart brokenness, something which she expected of someone who’d just broken up with the person that they’d spent a considerable amount of time with. The only evidence was in his appearance, which was slightly disheveled, hair slightly matted. He didn’t say much, only picked at his sashimi, and looked up at her on occasion, smiling cheekily.

“You don’t want to talk about it?”

He looked at her. “Talk about what?”

“About…you know…her…”

“Her?”

“Brandon, don’t play.”

He cleared his throat. “You didn’t want to hear about her.”

“I didn’t want to hear about your problems with her…I certainly want to hear about how y’all broke up.”

He took another long, drawn out bite. “I broke up with her…”

“You mean, Brandon David Greene actually grew some balls and told her it was over?”

“It’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing. I’m being serious.”

“Hardest decision of my life.”

“I’ll bet.”

“When you get your first boyfriend, Natalie, then you’ll understand.”

“I’ve dated,” she defended, shoving a whole roll into her mouth.

“Your chemistry textbook doesn’t count.”

“I’ve had a boyfriend before.”

“When?”

“High school.”

“High school, really? I believe it’s time to live in the now. You need to start dating.”

“I’ll date when I feel like it.”

“And when will that be? And please don’t say, when you meet the right guy. Blah, blah, blah…”

“It’s true. Certainly, there are no boneheads worth talking about here.”

“Have you met any guys outside of the library?”

“Yes…”

“And not through Asha?”

Natalie paused. “No…”

“Exactly.”

“Well how I meet guys doesn’t matter, Brandon,” Natalie assured him. “It’s the fact that I meet them that matters.”

“If you say so…I would just like to see you get your nose out of a textbook every once in awhile.”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“Of course it is, Nat,” Brandon said, tapping her hand once. “What else is a best friend supposed to do but worry about how their right hand is conducting their life?”

She studied his face, wanted to catch the moment where she was sure that he was joking. After all, there was never a moment where she looked at this boy and considered him a “best friend”. What did they talk about besides the complicated complexity that was Sophia? Yes they’d been friends now for over a year, but did they spend much time together?

Maybe.

Did he know much about how she conducted her daily life? Did he care?

It was a rarity that their two opposing worlds collided. He was captain of the club soccer team, president of Future Business Leaders of America, would’ve been a part of the glamorous Greek life if it weren’t for his drive to defy his family name and his father’s legacy, and for his ardent hatred for all frat boys. He probably only cared about her when he was sitting across from her, pouring his heart out about how Sophia had wronged him, or how bad their fight was, or how good their sex session was the other night, as if she wanted to hear such things about them, as if she even wanted to picture Brandon in such a position!

Natalie had never witnessed a more shallow relationship.

She certainly wasn’t as socially driven as Brandon, and she knew nothing about which white social circles he ran in. She only assumed that he was a part of the other brightly colored polo shirt-wearing suburban duds with their shallow jokes and domineering attitudes.

Except for Scotty. Scotty was the only one she knew and the only one she was certain that she liked.

It was only
then
that Brandon became different from those Abercrombie-wearing, trust fund having minions. He was funnier than what she initially expected, and she shockingly came to learn that his jokes would sometimes have her in tears, that inside jokes between them could easily be established, that she had a sense of humor at all. And he was far more laid back than the spontaneous, life-of-the-party persona he’d put on when they first met. He had his quiet spells, and she increasingly found comfort in the fact that she could sit back with him on a lazy Friday, watch a couple of sitcoms, not say a word, and be content.

She, on the contrary, was a part of the small circle that thrived under Asha’s popularity, which included a world that she was more comfortable with, a world that reminded her of where she came from; certainly a world that the powerhouse Brandon David Greene would find no comfort in.

In the course of campus life, they really had no business being friends, and she couldn’t quite remember the moment that they clicked, that he begin to call her at all hours of the night, because he knew that she’d answer, that he begin to invite her to pizza at three in morning just because he knew she’d be up. He knew that she’d be there for him.

They left the restaurant, he drove her back to campus, and instead of immediately hopping out of the car, she sat back into her seat, turned to him slowly and said, “You’re better off without her.”

Telling him this surprised her, as if she’d molded tightly into her role of “listener”. She couldn’t recall the last time that she actually gave him solid advice or showed that she cared at all. Brandon only assumed that she did, kept telling her his romantic and relational anecdotes, as Natalie stared back in silent absorption.

He looked confused, in the shadowed light of the dark interior, and replied, “Better off without
who
?”

“Brandon…”

Suddenly, clarity came to his face. “Oh!
Her
…”

“Yes…”

“Well, we’ll see about that, now won’t we?”

She nodded.

“And I think you should date
him
,” he told her, and a smile formed slowly on his face.

“Who?”

“
Andre Thomas
,” he sang.

“And on that note…I’m leaving…goodbye Brandon.”

“Oh, come on, Nat,” he called after her in a teasing tone. “I’m just joking with you! I ran into Asha on campus…she had to tell me about it…since you didn’t tell me about it.”

She’d shut the door, and he rolled down the window to speak to her. “With good reason!” she said.

“Alright then,” Brandon said. “I approve…”

Natalie scoffed and rolled her eyes, placing her hands on the door. “Please, Brandon…”

“Look, I know that that’s what you were after! My approval…and although I’ve never met the guy, I approve. I’m sure if you like him and Asha likes him…then he’s got to be an alright kind of guy.”

“I don’t like him! He just helps me with my biology…nothing more.”

“Is that what you science geeks call it these days, Nat? ‘
Helping with biology
’?” Brandon began to laugh a hearty laugh at her, and in the process he didn’t see her begin to walk away.

“I will be calling you soon, Natalie Chandler! This discussion is not over!”

“As far as I’m concerned, Brandon Greene, it is!”

#

When the winter winds blew, and the leaves fell daintily from the trees, Brandon Greene and Natalie Chandler found themselves inseparable, the type of connection that beckoned no explanation or no reasoning behind their gravity towards each other, only, in the simplest form, that she enjoyed his company and that he, as much as his eyes would reveal, enjoyed the idea that being around her brought him solace.

He’d come over the night following the first day of exams, somewhere close to eleven at night, and her roommate, had gone to see her boyfriend, and would probably stay the night. She’d been studying all evening for her organic exam that following morning, and he’d called her, asking her to help him with his equations again, and she’d agreed to it if he came over and kept her company while she studied. She’d let him into her suite, him, wearing nothing more than a bulldogs pullover and a pair of black sweatpants, and black messy hair to top it all off, and he’d sat down comfortably on the round blue rug, atop the bumpy tile floor, placing a stack of Accountancy books before him.

She sat down across from him, pulling the granola bar that she’d been nibbling on down from her desk.

“You call that food?” he asked her, opening a book, looking at her with an arched eyebrow.

Natalie took a bite in his face and shrugged her shoulders. “It does the trick.”

“So that explains why you’re a toothpick…”

“I think my mother would beg to differ…”

“Well, since I’ve never met your mother, all I can say is, you could use a steak or something…”

“You want my help or not?”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’m just doing my job…”

“Great,” she said. “Now let me do mine…how much did you study?”

“Not much…”

“
Bran
…”

“Well, between this and Christmas shopping and FBLA meetings and all the holiday festivities, this kind of got put on the back-burner…”

“So, you dump it all on me?”

“Not necessarily…I have all of the problems written down…”

“I swear you’re a handful sometimes…”

“But, you love me through and through…”

“That’s arguable right now…”

She snatched the book he’d been flipping through from him and instructed him to pull out a scrap sheet of paper and a pencil.

Natalie amazed herself. How she knew these equations, she would never know. But they seemed so easy to her. The numbers simply fit into her head perfectly once Brandon showed her the steps he was taught in class. The pencil in her hand moved wildly on the paper as she instructed him on what needed to be added, what needed to be subtracted, what needed to be plugged into the calculator, what needed to be carried where.

“Why don’t we switch majors?” Brandon asked her. “How in the hell did I get into grad school?”

“You’re smart,” Natalie assured him, patting him on the knee. “You just get caught up in the formula and you don’t plug it in correctly…you do it like I just showed you and I’ll guarantee you that you’ll make a good grade…”

“God, you’re so smart,” he said. “When did you get to be so smart…?”

“It’s not a function of being smart,” she explained. “I just look at numbers a little differently than you do…”

“My professor’s an asshole, and he grades terribly…we’ll see if I make a good grade or not…”

She reached up to him, pushed a few strands of his hair out of his eyes softly and smiled into his face. “You’ll do fine…and if you don’t, rest assured I’ll have a thing or two to say to your professor…”

“Would you really?”

“Yes, I’d tell him, ‘Sir, Mister, whatever, if you don’t give Brandon Greene a good grade I’ll knock you in the head’…”

“Very threatening, Nat, really…and please make sure you use that sweet southern belle accent too…that’s really intimidating…”

“Fine, I won’t say anything…”

He reached out to her playfully, and she attempted to push his hands away, all the while failing to realize that her cheeks had now grown hot.

“Brandon, stop it…”

“No, really, it’s cute, you should do it just like that…I’m sure he’ll melt, really…”

“Or, I can do this…”

It was then that she lifted her barefoot up, stuck it in his face, feeling him reach up and knock it out, calling out, “Nat, quit it,” grabbing her ankle, attempting to hold it off that way. But she persisted, got instant pleasure out of watching Brandon squirm, watching his face wince in disgust. He caught hold to her ankle swiftly, lowering her leg forcefully.

“When’s the last time you washed those things? They smelled…”

“They did not…”

“I didn’t know you could be so disgusting, Natalie Chandler…”

“Only when pressed to be…”

“Now, would you like it if I did that to you?”

“No, no,” she told him, chuckling a little. “Because yours really do smell…”

“Exactly,” he laughed. “And you wouldn’t be laughing then, would you?”

“No, because I’d be too busy kicking your behind…”

“You have the most incredible accent, I swear,” he laughed.

“I do not…”

“I do not,” he mocked. “Where on earth do you come from?”

She knocked him over with one push of her two hands into his chest, knocking his back onto the floor. He chuckled, pulling her down with him.

And he held her there with him, just for a second, just long enough to make her heart start beating strangely, just long enough to where she could smell him…some kind of soapy, laundry detergent scent.

Their new thing to do together when they were bored was wrestle. Initially, Natalie fell victim to Brandon’s brute strength and height advantage, but, one rainy night in early November, Natalie discovered his weakness; he was ticklish in a nook just below his armpit. Natalie started winning every “match” thereafter.