Gift From The Bad Boy

“You say yes, of course,” he joked.

I looked at his shirt and saw I was right about the athlete thing. The words Property of UNM Athletics were stamped in bold white block print across the chest.

Raising my eyes to meet his, I finally found my voice again. “I… I, I want to,” I said. “But I’ll have to…” My gaze fell and my voice dropped to a pitiful squeak. I couldn’t believe what I was about to say. “…I’ll have to ask my father,” I finished lamely.

At the upper edge of my vision, I could see a confused cloud pass over his face. “Your father?” he repeated. “But you’re in college. How on earth do you still have to ask him for his permission to go on a date?” As soon as he saw how embarrassed I was, writhing in place in front of him, his eyes grew huge. “Oh, wow, I can’t believe I said that. That was so rude, I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive me. Now I feel like an even bigger asshole than I did before.”

“No, no,” I tried to say. I wanted to explain the situation to him, but how could I? I’d been dealing with President James Sanders for my entire life, and even I could barely find the words to describe the situation to someone else.

It’s not that he was a bad dad. He wasn’t, not at all. But ever since my mother had died…

“He’s just protective,” I said simply. That was the easiest thing I could offer. It would have to do for now.

“Gotcha,” Dan said. He was clearly flustered.

I felt horrible. This conversation had started bad and only gotten worse since then. His calm poise had been dialed back somewhat. This was obviously not the way he had expected this whole shebang to go, but I didn’t know what else to do.

“It’s not that I don’t want to!” I said. “I do; I really do. You’re beautiful.” I clapped my hands over my mouth as the last sentence flew out unheeded. Just when I thought I’d found the rock bottom of social interaction, I managed to dig myself a little bit deeper. I could feel my cheeks burning. Was there a boulder somewhere nearby I could crawl under and die?

Dan laughed, but his discomfort was growing by the minute. “Um, thanks,” he said. He ran a hand through his long, curly hair. God, it was a gorgeous mane, an unbelievable chestnut color that looked flawless against his tanned skin. I saw his eyes flitting around like he was searching for an exit.

Speak, Carmen, I urged myself. Say something. Anything. He’s just standing there. You have to talk. Use. Your. Words.

“Maybe we can exchange numbers?” I somehow managed to squeak out into the awkward silence. It was baffling how my voice could sound so jarring and meek at the same time.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. He pulled out his cell phone and opened up the screen to enter in a new contact. Handing it to me, he stood back and watched as I entered my information before giving it back to him. “Cool, I’ll send you a text with my name so you’ll know who I am.”

I nodded. “Sounds good.” I tried to smile, but it felt all wrong. My cheeks were working too hard; my lips didn’t want to pull back far enough. Oy. What a mess this was.

“Nice to meet you, er…” he said as he looked down at the screen to see what I had typed, “…Carmen.” He offered a hand to shake. I reached out and took it. His fingers swallowed mine and the bronze tone of his tan made my skin look pasty white by comparison. He smiled again.

“You too.”

He turned and sauntered off back towards the jogging path that ran in a meandering loop around the outer edge of the park. I sat back down on my blanket with an oomph and put my head in my hands as I muttered out loud to myself.

“Good lord, you are an idiot,” I said. “‘You’re beautiful?’ Did you really just say that to him? They should put you in jail for how dumb you are.”

I sighed and let my hands fall onto the open pages of my textbook. Diagrams of the digestive system were staring back up at me, covered with hundreds of terms and descriptions of chemical reactions that I needed to know by tomorrow but had not even come close to understanding, much less memorizing. I really needed to just bury my head in the book, but that was clearly not happening, not after the train wreck I’d just been a party to. I needed to leave the scene of this social crime immediately.

Packing up my things into my small canvas satchel, I stood and walked towards my car. The breeze was light and warm as it rustled through the treetops. The park was brimming with people walking their dogs or tossing Frisbees back and forth to each other. A few students like me were spread out under the shade of the branches, nose deep in studying for finals. But, unlike me, they looked like they were actually getting things done. What a feeling that must be.