My Heart is Broke-Kurt Cobain

Chapter 43

"A date?!" I shout into the telephone, pacing the room back and forth. "No, I didn't think of it as a date."

"Well he seems to think it was," Krist replies. 

I run my fingers through my hair and groan. "I wish he would've made that clear."

"Any normal person would've known that that was a date, Kaitlyn."

"You have to understand that I don't pick up on social cues very easily, Krist," I retaliate, getting very defensive. "Well now I feel like shit. What do I do?"

"You just have to communicate with him," Krist explains. 

I've never thought of Dave in a romantic way; I've always thought of him as a friend. But now that he told Krist about our "date", I feel bad. I didn't even think about it in that way. I assumed that he was just wanting some alone time to catch up with me. 

"I'm an idiot," I groan. "Goddamn it."

"He's coming over later. Would you like to tell him then?"

I freeze at the thought of that, but I know that it's the right thing to do. "Yeah, that sounds good. Right now?"

"Right now's good."

I nod my head slowly. "Alright. I'll be there."

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Dave smiles at me as he walks through the door. I try to reciprocate the smile, but I can't, knowing that he's smiling because he thinks that there's something more going on between us than what is actually happening. 

"Hi, Kaitlyn," He waves to me awkwardly. 

I wave back. "Hi, Dave."

We continue to stare at each other for a while. No one else is in the room to tell us to knock it off. 

That is until Krist walks out of his bedroom. "Hey, man!" He gives Dave a hug and then turns around to face me, giving me a look and gesturing towards Dave. 

My body starts to tense up and my stomach drops. I don't want to hurt him. I never want to hurt anybody. 

"D-Dave, can we talk?" I stutter out. 

His eyebrows furrow, but he continues to walk towards me. "Yeah, of course."

He follows me outside into the backyard. My hands are shaking so hard that they're vibrating. 

I face him, but don't say anything. I don't know what to say. Dave is a great guy and any girl would be lucky that he even thought about them in that way. But I'm not that girl. 

"Are you alright?" He asks me, putting a hand on my arm and gently caresses it. 

His touch doesn't make me feel any better. His hands are icy cold. 

I look back up at him, his hand still on my arm. "I-um-I-" I sigh, then take a deep breath. "Are you under the impression that our last hangout was a date?"

He looks hurt by this and removes his hand from my arm. "'Hangout'?"

Seeing his pain on his face doesn't make me feel any better. I haven't even rejected him yet and he's already hurt. 

"Yeah," I shrug my shoulders. "Umm, I didn't know that it was a date."

"Oh," He shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels. "Well, I thought you knew."