Saturday. 7:00 p.m. The time kept running through his head over and over. He never understood why he always got like this every time Julia came over, but he couldn't help it. It's not like she never came over, quite the opposite in fact. But his heart soared at even the mentioning of her name, so being able to see her, and talk to her was almost too much to bear.
John laughed to himself and quietly paced his floor. 6:34. He already had dinner in the oven, he dressed nice but not too nice. All in all he felt like a teenage girl waiting for her prom date. He sat down and cleaned his desk for the fiftieth time. The suspense was killing him, he just wanted her to be here and get it over with.
A few minutes later, the food was done. He set the table, made their plates, poured the drinks, and waited. He tapped his foot on the ground for a while, stood up and jumped a few times, sat back down again and resumed tapping his foot. John found himself impatient, which was extremely rare for him.
He found himself doing push ups, 10, 20, and he got all the way up to 325 before he hard three sharp raps on the door. He knew instantly that it had to her. He shot up from the floor and got to the door handle in less than half a second. He opened it up and saw her.
Long dark brown hair was the first thing he noticed. I bounced and waved in such a way that he was caught speechless for a time. Her button nose complimented her smooth cheeks in the best of ways. Her eyes were like his except they were softer, more accepting of what it saw. Her teeth were whiter than bleached ivory. She stood at 5 feet 4 inches and had a beautiful smile plastered on her face. She wore little make up, just enough to extend her already beautiful features. She cocked an eye at him.
"Johnny, are you okay? You look a little sick," Her sweet voice was the finisher, it almost knocked him back on the floor where he was doing pushups just a second ago.
"N-No, Julia," he let out a small laugh, "I was doing push ups when you knocked on the door."
"I didn't know you worked out John," she let another, smaller smile creep out across her face.
John ached to tell her he loved her, in fact, his lips pursed up ready to annunciate those words. Of course he pushed them back though.
Get a grip John, he thought to himself, She could never love you. To her your just Johnny, a good friend. Let's not ruin even that.
He gained his bearings and realized how cold it was outside. He motion for her to come in, then immediately regretted acting like her butler. Why couldn't he ever act normal at the beginning of the night? He always seemed to loosen up later on, but it was like he was a bumbling idiot for the first fifteen minutes.
They sat down for dinner and talked about unimportant stuff for a while. She told him that she was thinking about quitting her job, he asked why, she responded. It went like that for about an hour when she said the question that would mark the real beginning of the night.
"John, I see your eyes. I see the intelligence that lays behind them, yet you work at a mediocre job pretending to enjoy selling cars to people you obviously hate. Why do you waste your life there?"
John sighed and said, "It pays the bills."
He could tell that wasn't an acceptable answer. Julia rebutted with, "Johnny, you could be doing so much more. You helped me pass college with excellent grades, yet your grades were barely good. I know you knew how to do everything that was asked of us in school. Yet it seems like you made sure your grades were decent at best. I don't understand."
"Julia, I don't know... I guess I didn't put enough effort into actually doing the assignments."
"Oh, don't give me that bullshit, John. I know you could've easily done it. But you didn't. Now tell me why."
