Stuck In Savannah

13. Are We Done?

“In private? Somewhere the boys can’t hear?” I spoke through clenched teeth, wondering why I always had to spell everything out for him. Why couldn’t boys just get a hint? Make things easy for me this once?

“Sure,” Connor shrugged nonchalantly as he finished the last bite of his pizza, “let’s go to the kitchen.”

I nodded curtly, then followed him into the kitchen as he started bustling around, slamming the cabinets shut and taking products out of the fridge as I took a seat at the island and silently observed him, wondering how to lay this all on him.

“Do you want tuna salad sandwich?” he asked as he spread out the needed ingredients and got down to work.

“I literally just saw you eat,” I remarked in a dull, deceivingly emotionless voice. Where the hell did all this fat go?

“I’m a growing boy,” he jested, laughing lightly and patting his belly like it was his most prized possession, “I need more.”

I shook my head, but otherwise didn’t comment on his weird and highly unhealthy eating habits. If he wanted to plug his arteries and die from a cardiac arrest at twenty, he could be my guest. I was here to talk about something else entirely, a more pressing issue than his impending, but inevitable death from cardiac arrest.

“You wanted to talk,” Connor reminded me as he slapped two slices of bread on the countertop before opening a can of tuna, “so talk. Preferably before my hair goes gray,” he quipped, but I smartly chose to ignore his jab.

There was really no easy way saying this, no matter how you looked at it.

Not to mention, I was about to break some unwritten girlfriend code to coming to him with this instead of keeping my mouth shut, like I was supposed to.

But then again, when did I ever do anything that I was supposed to do? That sort of went against my nature.

As much as I dreaded having to speak of this, I had to do it to restore my peace of mind. Connor was the only person who could help me with this, even if I hated having to admit that even to myself.

“You’d never guess who came to me today,” I started, hoping I wasn’t making a great mistake by speaking out, even if I was trying to be all casual and shit about it, like it was no biggie, “admitting they have a crush on you?”

Connor didn’t look particularly excited by the news. He barely even looked up at me, but considering he had a new girl vying for his attention every single day, this was nothing new to him and hardly made any difference. “Who?” he asked, humoring me, even though he didn’t sound particularly interested in this piece of information.

“Margot,” I exhaled and the moment her name fell from my lips, I was overcome with this sense of relief, like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulder now that he knew and shared the burden with me, although I doubted he’d see it the same way I did.

“Cool.” Was all Connor said as he bit into his sandwich and I did a double take.

My jaw hitting the floor, I couldn’t help myself but stare at him dumbly, almost like I didn’t recognize the guy standing in front of me now. “That’s all you have to say? Cool?” I wondered once I’d recovered, trying to figure out how come he looked nothing but surprised, much less impressed.

“Well, yeah,” he shrugged one shoulder, looking at me blankly, like I was the crazy one, “what did you expect me to say?” he asked and I blinked at him a few times before I figured out a response.