Doubt It

Open My Eyes in the Right Way

June 2019

"Oh god, she's gonna kill me," Tom muttered, low enough so the mic couldn't pick it up. He stared at the card in his hand, wondering how he was going to pull off this impression without offending the entire population of Boston, his girlfriend included.

"What?" Jake asked. Tom shook his head and took a deep breath before attempting the impression.

"When you he-ah the sound of thundah, don't you get too sca-yed," Tom tried to get through as much as he could without laughing before Jake cut in.

"Your girlfriend?" Jake quips without realizing what he said and who he said it in front of.

"Dude," Tom hisses, feeling his ears tinge pink as tried to keep his cool.

"Mark Wahlberg, easy, and he totally doesn't sound like that," Jake tried to dissipate the tension by moving onto the next impression.

~~

"Hey sweetheart," Tom says, sickly sweet, as you pick up. Something was definitely up, his voice surfacing with distress.

"What's on your mind Flat Stanley?"

"So Jake might've said something. In an interview we were doing today."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh god, when the video comes out, please do not break up with me," Tom's voice is light hearted but there's a hint of seriousness as he continues, "we had to do these impressions, I would make an impression, Jake would guess it, back and forth. And I got Mark Wahlberg, and well, Jake made a joke that it was you."

"He name dropped me?"

"No, no, he just said 'your girlfriend', but it's there. Like the crew heard it and the cameras have it on video and I'm pretty sure they won't edit it out. But I'm going to try to get them to right now."

"Why?" You ask, holding your breath. Sure, it wasn't ideal but you wondered why Tom didn't want to let the world know who you were.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, do you not want people to know we're together?" You hated how desperate you were sure you sounded.

"No, no sweetheart it's not that at all, but people suck and I know they already speculate about where I go between filming and going home."

"So why let them speculate?"

"You would want to?"

"I mean, would that be a bad thing? Do you not-,"

Tom cuts you off, "I do. I want to, sweetheart I want to scream from the rooftops that you're my girlfriend. I love saying it. When you call me, I'm like 'ah yes my girlfriend' and it puts the goofiest smile on my face, I've got it right now."

"Okay, let's think about this as logically as possible. Worst case scenario if we said 'hey I really like this dork', go."

"Uhh, okay, a mob of angry fans shows up at your house."

"Would that actually happen? Doesn't matter, Buddy will protect us."

"Love, Buddy can hardly breathe on his own, let alone protect you from strangers. He's not exactly a guard dog."

"Hey, he's got pee-wee power, Tom."

"What the hell is that?"

"You know, small but mighty?"

Tom chuckles on the other end of the line, "Okay, that's worst case scenario."

"Now best case."