Introvert

fourteen

The heat from the laptop that rested on her lap warmed her thighs. The evening autumn air blew in from her bedroom window. Between the rustling of the leaves and 'Outer Space/Carry On' by 5sos playing on her record player, her thoughts barely focused on the different tumblr posts she scrolled through. Dylan's Friday evening never felt so boring before, but she had nothing better to do.

That was until her phone started to ring.

Not thinking much of it, she slid the answer button across the screen.

"Hello?"

"Hey Dylpickle."

The girl recognized his voice immediately, but had never heard that nickname before in her life. "Who the fuck is Dylpickle?" She couldn't help, but laugh at the absurdity.

"You, Dylan. Duh."

She knew Austin couldn't see her roll her eyes, yet somehow he could feel it through the phone while she scoffed. "Why?" She asked.

"I don't know, does everything have to have a reason?"

"A ridiculous nickname that you have never called me needs a reason in my opinion."

Austin laughed. "Well, Pickle, you're not getting a reason beside the fact that I like it. It suits you."

Closing her laptop and setting it on her bed, Dylan switched her phone to speaker so she could put on a new record. 'Safari Song' by Greta Van Fleet began to play as she responded to the boy on the other side of the call. "I don't understand how 'Pickle' suits me."

"It just does. But it also means you need to think of a cute nickname for me now."

"Oh really?" A small chuckle left the girl as she sat on one of the beanbags in her room. Part of her wished this conversation was happening face to face. She wished that she could watch his movements as they spoke. Yet, she sort of knew how he was carrying himself. Over the course of the weeks, Dylan had begun to pick up on the subtleties of Austin's body language: the way he would run his hand through his bleach blonde hair, how his eyes would flicker during a conversation, when he smiled his grin would take up his entire face. All of these things made the girl's heart happy.

"Yeah, really. You can't be the only one to have a nickname in this relationship, okay?"

The words had escaped him before he could really think about what he said. In reality, he did mean relationship. The past few days, Austin had begun to realize that he might want something more with Dylan, but knew that that might just be too much for her. The last thing the boy wanted was for her to push him away.

So, he really should have said friendship. Not relationship.

Dylan didn't know what to say. It felt like a lump had got stuck in her throat. Austin's word choice could mean plenty of things, but didn't want to think about it. Although she was one to overthink just about everything, Dylan knew that for her sake, she needed to not analyze it. Just move the conversation along.

"Okay," was all she could utter.

By the tone of her voice, Austin knew he messed up. So the boy did what he knew how to do best, make the girl laugh. "Maybe okay will be our always."

He didn't quite get the pathetically cheesy quote right, but it still made the girl laugh. Her giggles echoed through the speaker of his phone which made me relax. A soft smile rested on Austin's face. This had become his favorite sound, Dylan's laugh. She had confided in him how much she hated her laugh, but he could listen to it all day. Even when she would let out her god awful snort she hated so much, it made him like her even more.

"You didn't even quote the book correctly," Dylan said as her laughter died down.

Austin shrugged as he spoke, "Oh well."

"Did you just call me to inform me of my new nickname?"

"Um, no actually," the boy paused for a moment, "I wanted to ask if you wanted to hang out tomorrow. There's a new sushi place opening up by the movie theater. I was thinking we could make a day of it. See Thor, go get sushi, and then I could teach you how to play D&D at my house?"

Instinctually, the girl bit the inside of her cheek. The plans she had made with Edwin came to mind instantly. A large part of her wanted to agree to the plans with Austin and cancel her original plans for tomorrow, but she couldn't do that. Dylan wasn't one to break her promises and she had made a commitment to be there the next day.

"I want to," she muttered. It felt like her voice had left her. Dylan didn't want to disappoint the blonde boy, but as she continued, she could feel his smile slipping away. "The thing is... I already have plans... with Edwin. I'm helping him with this art project and I don't know how long it will take."

"Oh... okay." The shock that rang in her ear from his voice didn't surprise her. She was surprised at how it affected her. The hurt from his tone sunk into her heart. "Maybe Sunday then?"

Again, Dylan gnawed at the inside of her cheek. Her plans with Everett lingered in her thoughts. "Um, I can't do Sunday either. I'm hanging out with Ev that day."

Silence held on the other side of the phone for a minute too long.

"I'm s-sorry." Dylan didn't want her voice to crack as she apologized. It just did.

Austin's heart immediately shattered. Although he was disappointed that he wouldn't get to see her over the weekend, he didn't want her to feel bad. The was the last thing he ever wanted to make her feel. "Pickle, it's okay. Don't feel guilty. You should never feel guilty about making plans with other people."

The girl had the phone pressed to her ear and there was no way he could hear her nod her head, yet she did it anyway. She didn't know what to say. She just knew that she didn't want to say the wrong thing.

"Okay?" He asked as he had gotten no response from Dylan.

"Okay." The tension in her stomach released as her anxiety subsided.

"Hey, maybe we can go after school on Monday. Or next weekend. It doesn't have to be right this second, just when we can. Anyway, what were you doping right now?"

The boy shifted the conversation to anything else. Even though he was excited for her, he was still a little disappointed and didn't want his mood about it to affect the girl even more.

And that's how the rest of the night went. The two teenagers discussed anything besides their weekend plans until they fell asleep on the phone.