No Chance Showmance

Freeze Your Brain

CALVIN

I had been two weeks since I first held Arlo's hand. It was a bold move, I admit that. But things had only been uphill since then. I was always really anxious around him for something, which may be a side effect of the butterflies that were constantly in my stomach when I was around him. I wanted to kiss him so bad but that dream would have to be put off, because it was that time a month. My parents visit from Canada. I called with them about once a week, like a quick update. At first, I didn't want to talk about Arlo to them. But then it became unavoidable. I didn't spend much time with anyone else. Emmy and Niccarrahh were dating now and Arlo was always free, along with the fact that he was my crush. I eventually talked about him every call, which made my parents want to meet him. His parents wanted to meet me too, so this week would be completely full. Arlo didn't spend the night last night, because his parents want to have me over for dinner before he spends more time with me. It's understandable. I wouldn't want my kid to hang out at a kids house and constantly spend time with that kid, not knowing who this kid was.

I tightened my backpack strap and got ready for school. I went to my car, and picked Arlo up. "Hi, my love." I said this without thinking about how this could be weird. He just looked at me for a second and I grabbed his hand. He was kind of staring at me while I drove.

"Do you wanna come over for dinner today or tomorrow?" Arlo asked. He wasn't asking if I could do it sometime next week, I think that he just wanted to hang out with me outside of school again.

"How about today? Tomorrow my parents are coming back from Canada for a day. They do that like once a month, and they really want to meet you. After that, we are back to pure freedom. How about on Saturday, we do our musical marathon your forcing me to do because you won that bet?" I suggested. If we got meeting the parents out of the way now, we wouldn't ever have to waste a day. We seemed a little bit codependent at this point, but I didn't really mind.

"I have to meet your parents too?" he looked at me while I nodded. "I'm gonna freeze up." He said this. His anxiety was more about social things. Parents were difficult and I felt bad for making him meet them, but honestly, I just wanted to get it all out of the way.

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I was sitting at Arlo's dinner table, next to him, across from his sister and her boyfriend, and his parents were at the heads of the table. I was only speaking when spoken to, and Arlo was holding my hand under the table. His hand in mine was the only thing keeping me sane today.

"So Calvin, are you and Arlo dating?" Mr. Dryver, Arlo's dad asked. I almost choked on my drink and Arlo was wide-eyed. It wasn't an absurd idea, because we hung out so much and we definitely both had a crush on each other, this assumption made me happy, but for now, we had to act repulsed.

"No. We're just... Platonic best friends. We hang out a lot but we don't date." I said, honestly, but I wished it was partially opposite. Arlo tightened his grasp on my hand a bit. It was getting really awkward after that. Until Arlo's sister spoke.

"Hey, I heard you joined theater! How's that going?" Anastazia, Arlo's sister questioned. She was trying to break the thick silence, which seemed impossible, but she just did.

"Yeah I really like theater so far. We're doing Heathers, and I'm hoping to be JD." I laughed a little. Of course I wanted to be the psycho character in a musical.

"We did that my first year of college. I was Heather Chandler." She said with a smile. She seemed proud to be a theater kid. I stared at her. She could play many, many roles and fit the original descriptions. She didn't look much like her parents, but looked a bit like Arlo. Arlo looked a bit more like his father, he had the blonde swishy hair, the muscles, and the small, yet fit, frame.