Que Será Será

The Connor Chronicles III: Tacos & Trauma (2016)

CHAPTER 3: TACOS & TRAUMA

We saw each other often, even when summer began. I saw Connor and Kathryn roughly two or three times a week. We often hung out at Kathryn's place. She liked playing host, and I liked playing guest. It was just us three for the most part, but sometimes we'd have Maia and Annabeth come with.

We'd often go to abandoned houses. Connor did this often before meeting us, and when her and Kathryn got closer, she brought Kathryn along. And now it was my turn.

I wasn't a big fan of trespassing, and thinking about everything that could be waiting for us inside, but screw it, Connor was beautiful.

It was actually interesting how Connor played detective. She analyzed the house, and studied the ceilings and walls. She'd tell us "this place went down in a fire. See the scorch marks?" like they do in the movies. It was actually quite fascinating.

Connor also was a photographer. I can't really call her a photographer because the only thing she does with her pictures is post them on Instagram. It's not like she tries to make a career of it. It's funny how serious people want to be seen as a photographer but only because they have a DSLR camera. Anyways, that was my rant on photography, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

So, Connor took landscape shots of the houses we'd visit. She'd utilize the weeds growing around the house and the two-foot-tall grass.

So this is what our summer days consisted of: we'd invade people's private property (but it's abandoned, so is it really trespassing? I don't know the rules), and Connor would play Detective while I would play Love-Me-Back-Connor and while Kathryn would model for Connor. We'd head back to Kathryn's house and I'd try to be Smooth Jud™.

I got Connor's social media handles and number eventually, and we Skyped often, the three of us. We laughed at how awful our signal would be, and send each other screenshots of how goofy we'd look all pixelated. It was nice and friendly, and I'd assume that that was it for Connor and I. I was going to fall victim once again to the friend zone.

That is, until Connor called me individually.

We talked a little bit, and I tried to look past how big of a nerd she was. She painted her room's door the blue telephone booth from Doctor Who, had two posters from The Walking Dead, and I could've sworn there was a Funko Pop collectible here or there. I didn't mind how geeked out she was. She was pretty, she was funny, and she had a great personality. That's all that mattered to me.

She went on later in the call to ask me something. She wanted to know if we could go see the newest Marvel movie together - Captain America: Civil War. Immediately, the idiot I was, I replied with "okay, let me see when Kathryn's available." and she said "Maybe we don't have to include Kathryn..."

And then I died. The end.

So after a wave of chills rushed through me, because nobody's ever made a move on me, I accepted a thousand times with a cherry on top. It was a date.

The day came, and I got toned calves from pacing back and forth, going back to the mirror to pop some zits, fix my hair, and work on my smile. I still hated myself at this time, but I couldn't let her see that.

I went from the bathroom to my room, to the kitchen, and back to the bathroom. Rinse and repeat. She eventually got to my place in a freaking Hummer. Her mom was driving (which seemed pretty juvenile for two very mature 16-year-olds (that was sarcasm. On the day, I was discouraged because I thought we were more mature than that, but thinking about it in retrospect, it was pretty accurate to how young we were)), and she was sitting backseat, which is the total Uber-Mom move, but I wasn't complaining one bit. I didn't know her mom was driving us, and I feared that she'd be sitting right with us during the movie. The one time I got to be with her alone, I can't even be with her alone, I thought. This was going to go much worse than I imagined.