Thirteen: It occurred to Me...
“On the day that you were born the angels got together / and decided to create a dream come true...”
-The Carpenters, Close to You
At breakfast on Thursday morning, Aunt Sheridan told me that we were going to start Christmas decorating the next day. She had big plans, to buy all new Christmas decorations and a tree from one of the farms outside of the city.
“People in other states are begging for Oregon's Christmas trees,” she informed me. “And we have them right here.”
Uncle Dillon mumbled and grumbled through his morning routine, but I caught him half-smiling when my aunt had turned away. He would never admit it, but whenever Aunt Sheridan was excited about something, he couldn't help but feel the same way, too. And that, I think, is love.
“Sam, if you want to invite any of your friends to help out, that would be okay,” my aunt added as I was putting my empty cereal bowl into the sink. She said it as if maybe things had suddenly changed and I actually did have friends and didn't spend lunches alone in the corner of the cafeteria. The look on her face was so hopeful that I couldn't help but nod and give a halfhearted sure, even though I knew it wasn't happening. If I couldn't amass a positive number of friends in nearly eighteen years of life, there was no way that I'd come up with one in less than a day.
I didn't really mind, though, the way I usually did when my aunt inadvertently brought up my lack of friends. I was too busy trying to hide a smile, because I'd spent nearly the whole afternoon with you the day before. And at the end of it all, when we'd circled back to the teashop and your mom was coming to pick you up, you gave me your number.
Seven digits and an area code. Right there, in my phone, right beneath a picture I'd snapped of you as you were saying goodbye. And it was real. A real girl, one who I really, truly liked, had given me her number. You had given me your number.
The thought kept me smiling all day.
I spent my classes checking my phone every five seconds, as if there was even half a chance that you would call me in the middle of calculus for no reason and we'd hold a conversation over Mr. Kuroda's droning lesson on logarithms. You didn't, of course.
I didn't expect you to. The fact that you'd spoken first, said the words I couldn't, asked for my number then gave me yours, didn't mean anything, really. I'd pretty much given up by the end of the day, because let's face it, I was too shy and too lame to make the first move, even though, as a guy, I think that was what I was supposed to do.
Naturally, when my phone rang as I was at my locker, I thought it was my aunt, because no one else would call me, really. But it wasn't Aunt Sheridan's name on my screen; it was your face, your smiling face.
“Hello?” I breathed into the receiver, hardly daring to believe it. I was leaning against the side of my open locker to steady myself, because my legs were almost knocked out from under me when you responded.
“Hey, is this Sam?” you asked, a smirk in your voice.
In the background, I heard chattering, conversation, laughter. “Uh—uh, yeah. Is this, er, Ellery?”
You laughed. “Who else would it be, silly?”
I didn't know—why did I ask that question? But I just laughed too, because I'd come to realize that with you, a laugh was almost always okay.
“So, why are you calling?” I asked, not thinking about it. “I mean, not that I didn't want you to call or anything, because I did—but not like that, I mean, I just wanted you to...uh...”
Idiot.
“I just wanted to make sure this was the right number,” you explained, chuckling. Your voice sounded different on the phone, as voices always do, but it still had that ever-present hint of teasing. I could practically see you there, smiling, leaning against your own locker. I didn't understand how you managed it, smiling all the time. I certainly couldn't do it.
It occurred to me then, as I pulled out a few books and closed my locker, that maybe you could be the friend that Aunt Sheridan wanted me to invite for the next day's events. Asking you over would be an even bigger leap than talking to you was—but I had hurdled that, and there was a small flicker in my mind that said I could pass this, too.
“Hey, Ellery?” I said, shifting the phone in my hand.
“Hey, Sam?”
“Um...” Come on man, don't chicken out now. Just say it. “So, we're Christmas decorating at my house tomorrow and my aunt said I could invite a friend and I don't know if we're friends but I think we might be so I was wondering if you maybe wanted to help?”
I said it all way too fast, in a big messy rush. But it was out and in the air now, and I was almost kind of proud because I'd actually found the guts to ask.
“Christmas decorating, huh?” You paused. My brain fretted that you'd sounded skeptical, maybe I'd crossed over a line, and dear God what if you said no, and—
“Sounds fun,” you said. “I'm in.”
My hand was on my closed locker. People were passing, moving, not noticing me standing there, frozen. Disbelieving.
“Wait... Really?”
A trickling laugh. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, Sam!” you cried, giggling.
I must have sounded like a complete idiot, but that was okay. I had asked you out on a...a date? No, it wasn't a date, not really, it couldn't be, not when my aunt and uncle were there too. But it was something, that's for sure, and since that was more than nothing I figured that something was a pretty good place to start. Especially because you'd said yes.
Yes.
Yes.
