Chapter 8—Sometimes You Just Have to Go for It
“Are you all right?” Mayra asked for the twelfth time that day. She slowed the car down to take the curve into my neighborhood as I tried to keep my heart from actually jumping out of my chest.
It had been like that all day. Every time I got near her, I could hear the words in my head that I had practiced with Bethany. I couldn’t say them, but they kept going through my head anyway. I took a deep breath and poked at the little scratchy fish-mark on the inside of the door, realizing at the same time that it had become a habit. Habits were dangerous for me, since once I started a pattern, I could almost never stop, but at least it was distracting me from the topic at hand.
“Matthew?” Mayra’s voice dropped a little, and I glanced at her.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You just seem very distracted today.”
I snorted a little.
“I’m usually distracted,” I said.
“More than usual,” Mayra said, amending her statement.
“Just thinking,” I admitted.
“About?”
About asking you to go to dinner with me tomorrow.
I didn’t actually say anything, just like I hadn’t said anything the other eleven times she had asked today. I closed my eyes for a minute and pictured what I had practiced with Bethany the night before. My mouth ached to make the words, but I couldn’t seem to do it.
With my eyes directed out the passenger side window, I decided to start a little easier.
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” I said. That was a good start, wasn’t it?
“Yes,” Mayra replied. She looked over at me as she drew out the word.
“Are you, um…? I mean, do you…?” I trailed off, trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to say. The windows were a little steamy from the cold rain outside and the warmth coming from the car’s heater. As I spoke, I watched my breath spread condensation on the window. “Are you…doing anything tomorrow?”
“Not really,” Mayra said with a shrug. She flipped up the turn signal and sat to wait for an oncoming car to pass, then pulled into my driveway and shut off the vehicle. “Dad was supposed to go fishing with one of his friends from Hamilton, but I guess that got canceled. I’ll probably get that English paper done early if I can’t come up with anything else to do.”
It was now or never.
With a pounding heart, shaking hands, and unsteady breaths, I spit it out.
“Doyouwanttogotodinnerwithme?”
I closed my eyes and tried to endure the silence that came afterwards. I could hear my own breathing and beating heart, but they were loud enough that everything else was blocked out. I was probably pretty close to exploding when I felt the edge of Mayra’s finger against my hand.
“Matthew Rohan”—Mayra’s voice contained both a tone of surprise and a hint of a fake southern accent—“I do believe you are asking me out on a date.”
“Would that, um…?” I had to stop, swallow a couple of times, and then take a deep breath to go on in a voice low enough I could barely hear myself. “Would that be okay?”
“Yes, it would be,” Mayra said with a soft laugh. “I’m glad you finally asked me.”
“You are?” I glanced at her quickly and then looked back to my hands.
“It took you long enough,” Mayra said. When I peeked at her face, she was smiling.
“I didn’t know what you would say,” I admitted.
Yes. She said yes. She said yes to me.
“After all the time we spend together?” Mayra shook her head a little. “We’re going to work on that self-confidence.”