(no subject)
I am presently overdosing on Fox News and boredom while waiting for my oil change. In light of this, I have decided to sort through some old stuff and see if there's anything I want to post here in hopes of keeping my work together somewhere in case I ever want it or feel inspired to drabble about it. Here's the first thing I've found (and perhaps the only, if what I remember about my old writing is true...):
I was dating Jack back when it started. I probably should have known where it was going, but I didn’t notice until it was too late, and I wouldn’t change it now for all the world.
My best friend Allison decided to celebrate the Fourth of July with a trip to a nearby town to watch the big city-sponsored fireworks. I was going, her boyfriend Nathan was going, our friends Ted and Natalie were going, and (to my surprise) her older brother Matt was going. Jack was in Costa Rica for a summer internship.
Allison and Ted were our drivers. Natalie volunteered to ride with Ted since she's had a crush on him since the day they met in tenth grade, and the rest of us climbed into Allison's car. She and Nathan settled into a comfortable conversation in the front seat while Matt and I looked at each other a little awkwardly in the back.
"Hey," I greeted tentatively.
"Hey, kid," he quietly replied, turning his head to look out the window.
I frowned. "I'm twenty-one, you know."
I could see the corner of his mouth turn up slightly even as he stared out at the passing scenery. "I know."
"That means I've been a legal adult for over three years now, and you can stop calling me 'kid'."
I heard a slight chuckle. "And what should I call you instead?"
"My name would suffice," I suggested with a roll of my eyes. "That's how most people address one another."
He turned to face me fully then, a look of distaste wrinkling his nose and forehead. "You want me to call you Alexandra? Really? I feel like I'm addressing a queen of ages past. No thank you."
I gave him my best withering glare. "You don't have to use the whole thing, Matt. There are plenty of suitable nicknames that can be made from Alexandra. Your sister, for instance, likes to call me Alex."
He shook his head without hesitation. "Too much of a boy name. You're no ditzy cheerleader, but you're not a tomboy either. You have to be one or the other to pull off a boy name." He studied me for a moment, smirk growing steadily. I lifted an eyebrow and waited for him to finish. "Besides," he continued, "some boy out there is one day going to have to tell his parents and friends that he's dating Alex. Family jaws will drop and friends will be teasing him before the poor guy can say, 'I'm really not a homosexual finally coming out of the closet; Alex is a girl's nickname, damn you all.'"
"Which actually takes quite a long time to say," I couldn't resist pointing out.
He grinned. "Thanks for picking up on that."
"And I have a boyfriend. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever misunderstood his sexual orientation on the basis of my name," I informed him.
His eyebrows lifted in interest. "Do you really?"
I nodded. "Yeah. His name's Jack. We've been together for about six months now. He's in Costa Rica for an internship in international politics for the next month and a half." I shrugged, and he made a small sound of acknowledgement. There was a beat of silence before I said, "What about Lexie? That's what my grandma calls me."
"Same shit, different name, only in reverse," he replied. "Too girly. That's the ditzy cheerleader version."
I sighed heavily. "My parents call me Lex." This suggestion was met with a laugh.
"Is that because you are the personification of civilized law, or because you remind them of Lex Luthor?"
Another sigh escaped me, this time accompanied by a shake of the head. "Allie?" I suggested, though I was beginning to think it was a lost cause.
He made a face. "That's what I call my sister. I can't call you both Allie."
"Al?" I offered.
"Boy name."
"Andi?" I already knew his response.
"Boy name, even if you spell it differently." A hint of a smirk started to curl the corners of his lips upwards again.
I was out of ideas. "Xandra?" I suggested, though I suspect the set of my eyebrows and the inflection of my voice gave away my thoughts on the matter.
"You aren't serious about that one, are you?" he asked, eyebrows lowering. I shook my head, conceding defeat. He spread his hands wide, palms up. "Well, there you are. You see my dilemma. And," Matt added, smirk returning in full force, "no matter how old you are, you'll always be younger than me. Sorry, kid." He paused, then added, "Get used to it, kid."
I lifted an eyebrow quizzically. "Did you just end the same monologue twice?"
He shrugged, completely unabashed. "Yeah. I couldn't decide which one I liked better, so I went with both. I just put the pause in to keep them separated."
Despite myself, I smiled a little. "You couldn't have combined them into one, like 'Sorry, kid. Get used to it'?"
"Absolutely not," he grinned. "Loses half the punch that way."
"And of course you couldn't have said, 'Sorry. Get used to it, kid,'" I teased.
"Never!" he agreed in the same light tone of voice. "Better ending, but a much weaker start."
"You're ridiculous," I muttered, rolling my eyes and directing my attention out the window. I heard him laugh softly beside me, shifting his body slightly in the seat as our badinage ended.
Despite what all those romantics would have you believe about the relationship between a girl and her best friend's brother, Matt and I were not secretly in love with one another. We were not enemies either. We were not friends. We were just… nothing. There was no relationship there at all, just a void that had never been filled with any kind of emotional ties.
Allison and I had become friends in first grade after I had decided that the girl who had been my best friend up to that point was a bossy control freak and I wanted out. Allison was just the opposite: she was sweet and funny and sometimes overly obliging to the point where I wanted to scream at her to make a decision of her own. She also happened to have a brother who was three years older than she was. For a first grade girl, a brother in fourth grade is hardly a good playmate, so we left Matt alone and he certainly didn't ask to be part of our Barbie tea parties or to finger paint flowers and suns with us. As we got a little older, the gap between us didn't seem to shrink any. When we finally reached middle school, he was starting high school. When we started high school, he was already a senior with nothing to gain from an association with a couple of lowly freshman girls. To be honest, we didn't particularly want to hang out with a senior anyway. We were happy with each other and our own friends. And then he left for college. I knew from things Allison had said that he now lived and worked in the area, but I had seen him only a handful of times in the intervening six years since high school. So, as I said, our relationship was simply nonexistent.
I suppose it was also the reason for my curiosity about what made him join us that day. When I broke the silence that had settled between us with, "Do you like fireworks then?" I wanted to wince at how lame I sounded. While I liked to think that I was a real adult now that I was twenty-one and about to begin my last year of college, being around Matt still made me feel like a gawky teenager, self-conscious and immature.
He glanced at me. "Who doesn't like fireworks?" he asked rhetorically.
"Yeah," I automatically replied. Then I corrected myself. "Actually, I don't really like them."
His eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "What? Why?"
I shrugged awkwardly. "I guess they just make me feel lonely," I started, looking down at my hands. "There's something about being in the dark, looking up at the stars, watching these beautiful but very short-lived, transient sparks fly up into the sky that makes me ache a little." I chanced a glance at him and found him watching me very intently and slightly curiously. It was a look I'd never seen directed at me before, and it was a look that said he had never perceived me in this way before and he was intrigued. It gave me a little rush of confidence. "Fireworks are one of those things that we all sit down in a big mass and share without any actual interaction or participation. Just because I sat down next to someone on a blanket and watched the same colored lights explode in the sky doesn't mean that we know each other or that we've bonded in any way. We're still just two individual people who happen to have witnessed the same man-made phenomenon. We leave just as lonely as we came, maybe more so because we leave more aware of being alone and more aware of our small isolation in the midst of a giant cosmos."
"But doesn't the fact that you shared the experience bring you closer in some way?" he asked quietly, cocking his head to the side.
I shook my head. "I don't think so. Maybe if you're consciously sharing it with a specific person. Maybe if you had someone to share a physical connection with, it wouldn't feel like you were being lost in the cosmos with room for millions of miles between us all. Maybe it's the physical anchor that I miss." I stopped myself, slightly embarrassed at blurting my thoughts out to someone I barely knew, and met his eyes. "Sorry, I don't really know what I'm talking about. I just don't like watching fireworks alone because they make me sad. Let's just leave it at that."
He gave me a small smile. "Let's test your theory. Instead of watching them alone side by side, we'll watch them together side by side and see if you like them any better. We'll celebrate Independence Day by practicing our interdependence." A goofy grin lit up his light brown eyes, and I couldn't help smiling back. "I think the founding fathers would have approved."
And that, I suppose, was the beginning of everything. Later, when all six of us had finished our picnic dinner, we situated ourselves as comfortably as we could on the ground to face the horizon where the fireworks would soon appear. Nathan put his arm around Allison, and she leaned against him contentedly. They didn't speak, but they didn't need to. Ted and Natalie were flirting on Nathan's other side, completely oblivious to the world around them. Matt was lounging on his elbows next to me and watching the people who walked past, commenting on anybody particularly interesting or patriotic.
There is one moment I remember before the fireworks started, just as the sun was setting, when I turned back to look at him. I had just seen a woman with a gaudy red star-shaped headband, white and blue streamers coming from each point of that star, whom I wanted to point out, but for just a second, I paused to study him. The last rays of the sun were like liquid gold as they lit his hazel eyes, golden curls lifting slightly in the breeze, blue t-shirt pulled taut across his shoulders by his posture but rumpled slightly over his stomach. It was the first time I saw him as a person with whom I could be friends. It was the first time I ever saw him as anything but Allison's older brother. It was the first time I ever found him attractive. But the change took only a fraction of a second and was 90% subconscious as I leaned down toward him and pointed out the garish attire of the unwitting victim of her own patriotism. The grin he gave me in response was conspiratorial and made my heart swell with the feeling that maybe I was a grown-up after all, even to Matt.
It was about a half hour later that the fireworks began. As the first one exploded, I felt Matt sit up and nudge me with his shoulder. "Ready for Experiment: Interdependence?" he murmured. Then he frowned and added, "I don't want your boyfriend to come back and beat me up or anything, so we're all clear that we're just mentally together for the sake of the fireworks, right?"
I nodded, wondering how exactly he thought things would change. But I noticed that he kept his shoulder close enough to touch mine even as his attention returned to the sky. I watched the first fireworks with a small smile, but the usual ache started to settle into my chest after a few minutes. At one point, I noticed Matt glance at me out of the corner of his eye, and then I felt his hand slide over mine. His fingers laced themselves between my own, and he squeezed my hand gently. I looked over, and he offered a smile. I felt my own smile return as his thumb brushed lightly over my knuckles. As the grand finale began, he released my hand and put his arm loosely around my waist. I rested my head lightly in the crook of his neck for the last few moments, and for the first time I could remember, the crescendo of lights and sound and spectacle made me happy.
"You were right," he murmured as the claps and cheers began, slowly withdrawing his arm from around me. "That's a lot better when you're not alone."
I looked up at him and told him honestly, "I'm glad you're here."
I don't think Matt was the slightest bit in love with me at this point. He'll tell you himself that it was a long time yet before he even thought of me in that way. Still, it was a beginning.
Jack and I broke up not long after he got back from Costa Rica. Don't get me wrong--it had nothing to do with my very brief interaction with Matt on the Fourth of July, and everything to do with a girl named Samantha who had been part of the same internship program and who apparently fit much better into Jack's future plans. I had gotten used to Jack's absence over the summer, so being dumped hurt far less than I would have anticipated. Still, I was well aware of my singleness a few months later when Allison started talking about her plans for her annual Halloween party.
Allison and I are not hardcore partiers. The Halloween party is not a drunken orgy. It's an excuse for Allison to invite all of our friends over, see them in silly costumes, and hang out with music and dancing and a few drinks. It really is a lot of fun. However, it was also going to be my first party since the preceding Christmas without a date. I thought about asking somebody just for the fun of it, but I'm not enough of a socialite to get up the guts to ask a guy, entertain him for an evening, and still be sufficiently relaxed to enjoy the party. And since there was no point in taking a date who would just keep me from enjoying the party, I gave up that idea pretty quickly. Besides, I had no idea whom I would have asked.
Consequently, I found myself feeling like a third wheel as I stood beside Allison and Nathan in their matching Raggedy Anne and Andy costumes and greeting people who came through the door of the apartment Allison, Natalie, and I rented together. Ted had come early to help set up, and Natalie had taken one look at his pirate costume and absconded with him. I was beginning to suspect that Ted didn't mind Natalie's blatant flirtation one bit, and that he would probably be quite happy to reciprocate if she ever just sauntered up and kissed him. It would probably make things much easier on the poor shy boy, actually.
I was surprised to see Matt's curly blond head poke through the doorway. I'd only seen him once for a few minutes since the Fourth of July, and I hadn't realized he'd been invited. He'd never come before.
Allison gave him a hug. Matt exchanged nods with Nathan. "Hey kid," he said when he reached me, one hand stretching out to ruffle my hair. "You look cute. A veritable vixen, in fact."
I blushed, much to my chagrin. I had hoped after our last meeting that I was past the awkward high school feelings Matt stirred up, but apparently not. "Thanks." I was wearing all brown, the same color as my hair, and a headband with ears. Allison had painted my face to look like a fox and pinned a tail on my pants. Fortunately, the face paint hid my blush, I think. "You look positively cherubic yourself," I returned.
"That was kind of the idea," he grinned. "Though I don't think Cupid was supposed to be a cherub," he mused. "Then again, I don't think he was supposed to be an adult either."
"Good thing you still look twelve then," I teased. And with his blond curls, rosy cheeks, and wide smile, he almost did. He laughed good-naturedly and moved past me into the kitchen, plastic bow and arrow dangling from his fingers and a white sheet draped over one shoulder and wrapped around his waist. Matt was not one of those gorgeous toned guys with the washboard abs or the bulging biceps, but he wasn't bad, and I didn't mind the view of his bare shoulder. I caught myself watching him go out of the corner of my eye and then realized he had stopped and was waiting for me.
"Come on, kid. Talk to me," he said, gesturing with his head for me to follow. I looked back at Allison and Nathan, who were engrossed in conversation with another couple that had just arrived, and I decided I might as well.
"So what's new?" he asked, pouring a glass of coke and adding a splash of rum. "Want one?"
I nodded and leaned back against the counter. "Well…" I stalled, thinking, "I have survived my first set of senior midterms without failure or death."
"Always a good thing," he quipped.
I murmured agreement. "My boyfriend dumped me for another girl with a boy name," I offered with a slight smirk, sure he'd find that tidbit of information amusing.
He chuckled. "Pat? Jamie? Jessie?" he guessed.
I laughed. "Sam, actually." His eyebrows lifted, but he didn't speak. I realized belatedly that he was waiting for more information. "Remember I told you he was in Costa Rica over the summer? Apparently so was Samantha. I guess they hit it off, and he decided Sam was worth pursuing, and so he called it quits." I shrugged and took a sip of my drink. "I'm over it."
He nodded, looking at me closely as if to determine whether I really meant it. "Okay," he said at last. He loaded up a plate and headed out of the kitchen, throwing me a smile. "Let's find a place to sit."
I was surprised by his unexpected attention to me until I looked around the apartment and realized I was probably the only person besides his sister whom he knew. I didn't mind. "What about you?" I asked as we settled onto opposite ends of one of the couches in the living room. "Anything new and exciting you want to share?"
He chewed on his cookie slowly. "Work is the same as always," he offered.
I realized suddenly that I didn't know where he worked. "What do you do?" I asked curiously.
"I'm an electrical engineer at a small consulting firm downtown. I work on whatever projects the company takes on, anything from designing a circuit board to making instrument clusters for cars."
I let out a low whistle, impressed. "So you must be a smart guy, huh?"
He brushed it off. "I guess. I just think it's interesting, and I like what I do."
"That's good," I said enviously. "I haven't really had enough of a chance to decide yet if I really like what I'm going to do." I saw his silent question and answered it for him. "Speech pathology. I have an internship this year at a learning center, but I'm only a few weeks in." He nodded and we lapsed into silence for a few minutes.
"I broke up with my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago," he said suddenly. "I guess that's new, though I don't think it necessarily qualifies as exciting."
"I didn't even know you had a girlfriend," I admitted honestly. "Tell me about her."
He leaned back against the armrest and pursed his lips. "Kristen and I met through a mutual friend, and we hit it off right away. She was cute and smart and liked lots of the same things I did. We went out for a few months until I realized she was cute and smart, but she also had the personality of a wet noodle. She reminded me a little of Allison that way. Don't misunderstand me," he hurried to add when he saw my frown at his derogatory mention of my best friend, "I love my sister, and I think she's great. But sometimes she bends so far backwards to make sure everybody's happy that I wonder if she even remembers what it was like to do something for herself. And Kristen was twice that. I realized after a while that it was like dating myself; she agreed with me about everything and she always did everything that I wanted and never had an opinion or a desire of her own. I guess I'm as narcissistic as the next guy-and I freely admit that guys tend to be pretty in love with themselves-but it got old."
I studied him as he spoke, surprised by his candor. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked up at me with a little sheepish grin. "It just sucks to be alone at Halloween, with all the parties and costumes and everybody trying to match somebody else," he added wryly.
I agreed. Then, unable to hold it in anymore, I blurted out, "Why are you talking to me, Matt?"
He looked completely taken aback. "What do you mean?" he asked. "You want me to stop?"
I was blushing again. I could feel my skin burning. I looked down at my cup. "I didn't mean to offend you," I muttered. "It's just that… well, we've known each other practically our whole lives, and we've never really spoken before except when we went to the fireworks. You and Allison never really did anything together, and you and I kind of pretended the other didn't exist most of the time."
"Sorry about that," he said quietly. "It wasn't anything personal."
"Oh, I know that," I rushed to assure him. "It would have been weird for you to hang out with us. It's just that it's still a little weird now, I guess. I feel like I know you, but without actually knowing you at all."
He sighed. "I know what you mean. But Allison and I kind of came to the realization last summer that we're old enough for the difference in our ages to be kind of a moot point now, and we decided that we should start acting like friends now that we're not forced to live in the same house. Otherwise we're going to be the kind of siblings that never see each other as adults, and neither of us wants that. A few years here and there don't really matter when we're all responsible working adults. And, to be completely honest, I need some more good friends. Electrical engineers aren't known for their social lives, generally speaking, so I'm not exactly finding people to spend my spare time with at work. And most of my high school and college friends have moved away or gotten married or something. I'm tired of being the odd one out."
I resisted the urge to give him a sympathetic hug. "I know what you mean. And nobody wants to be alone on Halloween. It takes all the fun out of the occasion."
He flashed me a smile. "So what do you say, kid? Are we old enough to be friends, even without my sister present?"
I grinned back, pleasantly surprised. "Absolutely. Though you really have to find a better nickname for me now that we're all 'responsible working adults' and the difference in our ages doesn't matter anymore."
"Touché," he replied. "I'll see what I can do. At the moment, I have an overwhelming urge to use this bow and arrow on somebody. I've been trying to hold it in ever since I got here. Any suggestions for a target?"
"Ted," I said without hesitation as he entered the room, being dragged by the hand behind Natalie. So Matt took aim, fired, and hit his target squarely on the right side of his red knickers.
We kept up a light banter the rest of the evening, just sitting there on the couch most of the time, and it was nice to have company. The party went off without a hitch, and I was glad I hadn't tried to force an awkward first date out the occasion. Allison, the happy hostess, was glowing with pleasure as she looked around the room.
The only other moment that really stands out in my mind is at the end of the evening (well, early morning) when Matt got up to go. He looked at me for a moment before saying, "Thanks for keeping me company. I'm going to leave you my phone number. You know, as a symbol of good faith that we're friends now." And with that, he pushed a business card into my hand with his name, work phone, cell phone, and e-mail. "See you around, kid. No prank calls!" And with a wink, he was gone.
I pinned his card up on the bulletin board in my room. I didn't expect to call him, but it was nice to know it was there. Just in case.
I was dating Jack back when it started. I probably should have known where it was going, but I didn’t notice until it was too late, and I wouldn’t change it now for all the world.
My best friend Allison decided to celebrate the Fourth of July with a trip to a nearby town to watch the big city-sponsored fireworks. I was going, her boyfriend Nathan was going, our friends Ted and Natalie were going, and (to my surprise) her older brother Matt was going. Jack was in Costa Rica for a summer internship.
Allison and Ted were our drivers. Natalie volunteered to ride with Ted since she's had a crush on him since the day they met in tenth grade, and the rest of us climbed into Allison's car. She and Nathan settled into a comfortable conversation in the front seat while Matt and I looked at each other a little awkwardly in the back.
"Hey," I greeted tentatively.
"Hey, kid," he quietly replied, turning his head to look out the window.
I frowned. "I'm twenty-one, you know."
I could see the corner of his mouth turn up slightly even as he stared out at the passing scenery. "I know."
"That means I've been a legal adult for over three years now, and you can stop calling me 'kid'."
I heard a slight chuckle. "And what should I call you instead?"
"My name would suffice," I suggested with a roll of my eyes. "That's how most people address one another."
He turned to face me fully then, a look of distaste wrinkling his nose and forehead. "You want me to call you Alexandra? Really? I feel like I'm addressing a queen of ages past. No thank you."
I gave him my best withering glare. "You don't have to use the whole thing, Matt. There are plenty of suitable nicknames that can be made from Alexandra. Your sister, for instance, likes to call me Alex."
He shook his head without hesitation. "Too much of a boy name. You're no ditzy cheerleader, but you're not a tomboy either. You have to be one or the other to pull off a boy name." He studied me for a moment, smirk growing steadily. I lifted an eyebrow and waited for him to finish. "Besides," he continued, "some boy out there is one day going to have to tell his parents and friends that he's dating Alex. Family jaws will drop and friends will be teasing him before the poor guy can say, 'I'm really not a homosexual finally coming out of the closet; Alex is a girl's nickname, damn you all.'"
"Which actually takes quite a long time to say," I couldn't resist pointing out.
He grinned. "Thanks for picking up on that."
"And I have a boyfriend. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever misunderstood his sexual orientation on the basis of my name," I informed him.
His eyebrows lifted in interest. "Do you really?"
I nodded. "Yeah. His name's Jack. We've been together for about six months now. He's in Costa Rica for an internship in international politics for the next month and a half." I shrugged, and he made a small sound of acknowledgement. There was a beat of silence before I said, "What about Lexie? That's what my grandma calls me."
"Same shit, different name, only in reverse," he replied. "Too girly. That's the ditzy cheerleader version."
I sighed heavily. "My parents call me Lex." This suggestion was met with a laugh.
"Is that because you are the personification of civilized law, or because you remind them of Lex Luthor?"
Another sigh escaped me, this time accompanied by a shake of the head. "Allie?" I suggested, though I was beginning to think it was a lost cause.
He made a face. "That's what I call my sister. I can't call you both Allie."
"Al?" I offered.
"Boy name."
"Andi?" I already knew his response.
"Boy name, even if you spell it differently." A hint of a smirk started to curl the corners of his lips upwards again.
I was out of ideas. "Xandra?" I suggested, though I suspect the set of my eyebrows and the inflection of my voice gave away my thoughts on the matter.
"You aren't serious about that one, are you?" he asked, eyebrows lowering. I shook my head, conceding defeat. He spread his hands wide, palms up. "Well, there you are. You see my dilemma. And," Matt added, smirk returning in full force, "no matter how old you are, you'll always be younger than me. Sorry, kid." He paused, then added, "Get used to it, kid."
I lifted an eyebrow quizzically. "Did you just end the same monologue twice?"
He shrugged, completely unabashed. "Yeah. I couldn't decide which one I liked better, so I went with both. I just put the pause in to keep them separated."
Despite myself, I smiled a little. "You couldn't have combined them into one, like 'Sorry, kid. Get used to it'?"
"Absolutely not," he grinned. "Loses half the punch that way."
"And of course you couldn't have said, 'Sorry. Get used to it, kid,'" I teased.
"Never!" he agreed in the same light tone of voice. "Better ending, but a much weaker start."
"You're ridiculous," I muttered, rolling my eyes and directing my attention out the window. I heard him laugh softly beside me, shifting his body slightly in the seat as our badinage ended.
Despite what all those romantics would have you believe about the relationship between a girl and her best friend's brother, Matt and I were not secretly in love with one another. We were not enemies either. We were not friends. We were just… nothing. There was no relationship there at all, just a void that had never been filled with any kind of emotional ties.
Allison and I had become friends in first grade after I had decided that the girl who had been my best friend up to that point was a bossy control freak and I wanted out. Allison was just the opposite: she was sweet and funny and sometimes overly obliging to the point where I wanted to scream at her to make a decision of her own. She also happened to have a brother who was three years older than she was. For a first grade girl, a brother in fourth grade is hardly a good playmate, so we left Matt alone and he certainly didn't ask to be part of our Barbie tea parties or to finger paint flowers and suns with us. As we got a little older, the gap between us didn't seem to shrink any. When we finally reached middle school, he was starting high school. When we started high school, he was already a senior with nothing to gain from an association with a couple of lowly freshman girls. To be honest, we didn't particularly want to hang out with a senior anyway. We were happy with each other and our own friends. And then he left for college. I knew from things Allison had said that he now lived and worked in the area, but I had seen him only a handful of times in the intervening six years since high school. So, as I said, our relationship was simply nonexistent.
I suppose it was also the reason for my curiosity about what made him join us that day. When I broke the silence that had settled between us with, "Do you like fireworks then?" I wanted to wince at how lame I sounded. While I liked to think that I was a real adult now that I was twenty-one and about to begin my last year of college, being around Matt still made me feel like a gawky teenager, self-conscious and immature.
He glanced at me. "Who doesn't like fireworks?" he asked rhetorically.
"Yeah," I automatically replied. Then I corrected myself. "Actually, I don't really like them."
His eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "What? Why?"
I shrugged awkwardly. "I guess they just make me feel lonely," I started, looking down at my hands. "There's something about being in the dark, looking up at the stars, watching these beautiful but very short-lived, transient sparks fly up into the sky that makes me ache a little." I chanced a glance at him and found him watching me very intently and slightly curiously. It was a look I'd never seen directed at me before, and it was a look that said he had never perceived me in this way before and he was intrigued. It gave me a little rush of confidence. "Fireworks are one of those things that we all sit down in a big mass and share without any actual interaction or participation. Just because I sat down next to someone on a blanket and watched the same colored lights explode in the sky doesn't mean that we know each other or that we've bonded in any way. We're still just two individual people who happen to have witnessed the same man-made phenomenon. We leave just as lonely as we came, maybe more so because we leave more aware of being alone and more aware of our small isolation in the midst of a giant cosmos."
"But doesn't the fact that you shared the experience bring you closer in some way?" he asked quietly, cocking his head to the side.
I shook my head. "I don't think so. Maybe if you're consciously sharing it with a specific person. Maybe if you had someone to share a physical connection with, it wouldn't feel like you were being lost in the cosmos with room for millions of miles between us all. Maybe it's the physical anchor that I miss." I stopped myself, slightly embarrassed at blurting my thoughts out to someone I barely knew, and met his eyes. "Sorry, I don't really know what I'm talking about. I just don't like watching fireworks alone because they make me sad. Let's just leave it at that."
He gave me a small smile. "Let's test your theory. Instead of watching them alone side by side, we'll watch them together side by side and see if you like them any better. We'll celebrate Independence Day by practicing our interdependence." A goofy grin lit up his light brown eyes, and I couldn't help smiling back. "I think the founding fathers would have approved."
And that, I suppose, was the beginning of everything. Later, when all six of us had finished our picnic dinner, we situated ourselves as comfortably as we could on the ground to face the horizon where the fireworks would soon appear. Nathan put his arm around Allison, and she leaned against him contentedly. They didn't speak, but they didn't need to. Ted and Natalie were flirting on Nathan's other side, completely oblivious to the world around them. Matt was lounging on his elbows next to me and watching the people who walked past, commenting on anybody particularly interesting or patriotic.
There is one moment I remember before the fireworks started, just as the sun was setting, when I turned back to look at him. I had just seen a woman with a gaudy red star-shaped headband, white and blue streamers coming from each point of that star, whom I wanted to point out, but for just a second, I paused to study him. The last rays of the sun were like liquid gold as they lit his hazel eyes, golden curls lifting slightly in the breeze, blue t-shirt pulled taut across his shoulders by his posture but rumpled slightly over his stomach. It was the first time I saw him as a person with whom I could be friends. It was the first time I ever saw him as anything but Allison's older brother. It was the first time I ever found him attractive. But the change took only a fraction of a second and was 90% subconscious as I leaned down toward him and pointed out the garish attire of the unwitting victim of her own patriotism. The grin he gave me in response was conspiratorial and made my heart swell with the feeling that maybe I was a grown-up after all, even to Matt.
It was about a half hour later that the fireworks began. As the first one exploded, I felt Matt sit up and nudge me with his shoulder. "Ready for Experiment: Interdependence?" he murmured. Then he frowned and added, "I don't want your boyfriend to come back and beat me up or anything, so we're all clear that we're just mentally together for the sake of the fireworks, right?"
I nodded, wondering how exactly he thought things would change. But I noticed that he kept his shoulder close enough to touch mine even as his attention returned to the sky. I watched the first fireworks with a small smile, but the usual ache started to settle into my chest after a few minutes. At one point, I noticed Matt glance at me out of the corner of his eye, and then I felt his hand slide over mine. His fingers laced themselves between my own, and he squeezed my hand gently. I looked over, and he offered a smile. I felt my own smile return as his thumb brushed lightly over my knuckles. As the grand finale began, he released my hand and put his arm loosely around my waist. I rested my head lightly in the crook of his neck for the last few moments, and for the first time I could remember, the crescendo of lights and sound and spectacle made me happy.
"You were right," he murmured as the claps and cheers began, slowly withdrawing his arm from around me. "That's a lot better when you're not alone."
I looked up at him and told him honestly, "I'm glad you're here."
I don't think Matt was the slightest bit in love with me at this point. He'll tell you himself that it was a long time yet before he even thought of me in that way. Still, it was a beginning.
Jack and I broke up not long after he got back from Costa Rica. Don't get me wrong--it had nothing to do with my very brief interaction with Matt on the Fourth of July, and everything to do with a girl named Samantha who had been part of the same internship program and who apparently fit much better into Jack's future plans. I had gotten used to Jack's absence over the summer, so being dumped hurt far less than I would have anticipated. Still, I was well aware of my singleness a few months later when Allison started talking about her plans for her annual Halloween party.
Allison and I are not hardcore partiers. The Halloween party is not a drunken orgy. It's an excuse for Allison to invite all of our friends over, see them in silly costumes, and hang out with music and dancing and a few drinks. It really is a lot of fun. However, it was also going to be my first party since the preceding Christmas without a date. I thought about asking somebody just for the fun of it, but I'm not enough of a socialite to get up the guts to ask a guy, entertain him for an evening, and still be sufficiently relaxed to enjoy the party. And since there was no point in taking a date who would just keep me from enjoying the party, I gave up that idea pretty quickly. Besides, I had no idea whom I would have asked.
Consequently, I found myself feeling like a third wheel as I stood beside Allison and Nathan in their matching Raggedy Anne and Andy costumes and greeting people who came through the door of the apartment Allison, Natalie, and I rented together. Ted had come early to help set up, and Natalie had taken one look at his pirate costume and absconded with him. I was beginning to suspect that Ted didn't mind Natalie's blatant flirtation one bit, and that he would probably be quite happy to reciprocate if she ever just sauntered up and kissed him. It would probably make things much easier on the poor shy boy, actually.
I was surprised to see Matt's curly blond head poke through the doorway. I'd only seen him once for a few minutes since the Fourth of July, and I hadn't realized he'd been invited. He'd never come before.
Allison gave him a hug. Matt exchanged nods with Nathan. "Hey kid," he said when he reached me, one hand stretching out to ruffle my hair. "You look cute. A veritable vixen, in fact."
I blushed, much to my chagrin. I had hoped after our last meeting that I was past the awkward high school feelings Matt stirred up, but apparently not. "Thanks." I was wearing all brown, the same color as my hair, and a headband with ears. Allison had painted my face to look like a fox and pinned a tail on my pants. Fortunately, the face paint hid my blush, I think. "You look positively cherubic yourself," I returned.
"That was kind of the idea," he grinned. "Though I don't think Cupid was supposed to be a cherub," he mused. "Then again, I don't think he was supposed to be an adult either."
"Good thing you still look twelve then," I teased. And with his blond curls, rosy cheeks, and wide smile, he almost did. He laughed good-naturedly and moved past me into the kitchen, plastic bow and arrow dangling from his fingers and a white sheet draped over one shoulder and wrapped around his waist. Matt was not one of those gorgeous toned guys with the washboard abs or the bulging biceps, but he wasn't bad, and I didn't mind the view of his bare shoulder. I caught myself watching him go out of the corner of my eye and then realized he had stopped and was waiting for me.
"Come on, kid. Talk to me," he said, gesturing with his head for me to follow. I looked back at Allison and Nathan, who were engrossed in conversation with another couple that had just arrived, and I decided I might as well.
"So what's new?" he asked, pouring a glass of coke and adding a splash of rum. "Want one?"
I nodded and leaned back against the counter. "Well…" I stalled, thinking, "I have survived my first set of senior midterms without failure or death."
"Always a good thing," he quipped.
I murmured agreement. "My boyfriend dumped me for another girl with a boy name," I offered with a slight smirk, sure he'd find that tidbit of information amusing.
He chuckled. "Pat? Jamie? Jessie?" he guessed.
I laughed. "Sam, actually." His eyebrows lifted, but he didn't speak. I realized belatedly that he was waiting for more information. "Remember I told you he was in Costa Rica over the summer? Apparently so was Samantha. I guess they hit it off, and he decided Sam was worth pursuing, and so he called it quits." I shrugged and took a sip of my drink. "I'm over it."
He nodded, looking at me closely as if to determine whether I really meant it. "Okay," he said at last. He loaded up a plate and headed out of the kitchen, throwing me a smile. "Let's find a place to sit."
I was surprised by his unexpected attention to me until I looked around the apartment and realized I was probably the only person besides his sister whom he knew. I didn't mind. "What about you?" I asked as we settled onto opposite ends of one of the couches in the living room. "Anything new and exciting you want to share?"
He chewed on his cookie slowly. "Work is the same as always," he offered.
I realized suddenly that I didn't know where he worked. "What do you do?" I asked curiously.
"I'm an electrical engineer at a small consulting firm downtown. I work on whatever projects the company takes on, anything from designing a circuit board to making instrument clusters for cars."
I let out a low whistle, impressed. "So you must be a smart guy, huh?"
He brushed it off. "I guess. I just think it's interesting, and I like what I do."
"That's good," I said enviously. "I haven't really had enough of a chance to decide yet if I really like what I'm going to do." I saw his silent question and answered it for him. "Speech pathology. I have an internship this year at a learning center, but I'm only a few weeks in." He nodded and we lapsed into silence for a few minutes.
"I broke up with my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago," he said suddenly. "I guess that's new, though I don't think it necessarily qualifies as exciting."
"I didn't even know you had a girlfriend," I admitted honestly. "Tell me about her."
He leaned back against the armrest and pursed his lips. "Kristen and I met through a mutual friend, and we hit it off right away. She was cute and smart and liked lots of the same things I did. We went out for a few months until I realized she was cute and smart, but she also had the personality of a wet noodle. She reminded me a little of Allison that way. Don't misunderstand me," he hurried to add when he saw my frown at his derogatory mention of my best friend, "I love my sister, and I think she's great. But sometimes she bends so far backwards to make sure everybody's happy that I wonder if she even remembers what it was like to do something for herself. And Kristen was twice that. I realized after a while that it was like dating myself; she agreed with me about everything and she always did everything that I wanted and never had an opinion or a desire of her own. I guess I'm as narcissistic as the next guy-and I freely admit that guys tend to be pretty in love with themselves-but it got old."
I studied him as he spoke, surprised by his candor. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked up at me with a little sheepish grin. "It just sucks to be alone at Halloween, with all the parties and costumes and everybody trying to match somebody else," he added wryly.
I agreed. Then, unable to hold it in anymore, I blurted out, "Why are you talking to me, Matt?"
He looked completely taken aback. "What do you mean?" he asked. "You want me to stop?"
I was blushing again. I could feel my skin burning. I looked down at my cup. "I didn't mean to offend you," I muttered. "It's just that… well, we've known each other practically our whole lives, and we've never really spoken before except when we went to the fireworks. You and Allison never really did anything together, and you and I kind of pretended the other didn't exist most of the time."
"Sorry about that," he said quietly. "It wasn't anything personal."
"Oh, I know that," I rushed to assure him. "It would have been weird for you to hang out with us. It's just that it's still a little weird now, I guess. I feel like I know you, but without actually knowing you at all."
He sighed. "I know what you mean. But Allison and I kind of came to the realization last summer that we're old enough for the difference in our ages to be kind of a moot point now, and we decided that we should start acting like friends now that we're not forced to live in the same house. Otherwise we're going to be the kind of siblings that never see each other as adults, and neither of us wants that. A few years here and there don't really matter when we're all responsible working adults. And, to be completely honest, I need some more good friends. Electrical engineers aren't known for their social lives, generally speaking, so I'm not exactly finding people to spend my spare time with at work. And most of my high school and college friends have moved away or gotten married or something. I'm tired of being the odd one out."
I resisted the urge to give him a sympathetic hug. "I know what you mean. And nobody wants to be alone on Halloween. It takes all the fun out of the occasion."
He flashed me a smile. "So what do you say, kid? Are we old enough to be friends, even without my sister present?"
I grinned back, pleasantly surprised. "Absolutely. Though you really have to find a better nickname for me now that we're all 'responsible working adults' and the difference in our ages doesn't matter anymore."
"Touché," he replied. "I'll see what I can do. At the moment, I have an overwhelming urge to use this bow and arrow on somebody. I've been trying to hold it in ever since I got here. Any suggestions for a target?"
"Ted," I said without hesitation as he entered the room, being dragged by the hand behind Natalie. So Matt took aim, fired, and hit his target squarely on the right side of his red knickers.
We kept up a light banter the rest of the evening, just sitting there on the couch most of the time, and it was nice to have company. The party went off without a hitch, and I was glad I hadn't tried to force an awkward first date out the occasion. Allison, the happy hostess, was glowing with pleasure as she looked around the room.
The only other moment that really stands out in my mind is at the end of the evening (well, early morning) when Matt got up to go. He looked at me for a moment before saying, "Thanks for keeping me company. I'm going to leave you my phone number. You know, as a symbol of good faith that we're friends now." And with that, he pushed a business card into my hand with his name, work phone, cell phone, and e-mail. "See you around, kid. No prank calls!" And with a wink, he was gone.
I pinned his card up on the bulletin board in my room. I didn't expect to call him, but it was nice to know it was there. Just in case.