“Good…see you then.”
After hanging up, I stared at my phone for a few minutes. It’d been two months since Antonio and I reconnected as friends. Up until this point, he hadn’t made me feel like he had any expectations, but wanting to come pick me up felt a little too…’date-like’. I made a mental note to help him keep things in perspective. If he couldn’t handle this, then I’d back off. The last thing I wanted was to hurt him all over again.
*****
I freshened up my lip gloss and stepped out of the car just as Antonio was pulling into the parking lot. We made eye contact as he was climbing out of his truck and I could still feel the awkward tension between us from our conversation earlier. He forced a smile.
“Whassup,” he said casually.
I smiled back and greeted him as he held the door for me to step inside. We stood there in silence waiting to be seated, again pointing out that things were still strange between us.
The hostess seated us and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Ok, so look, at the risk of making things even weirder between us, I just wanna say that I’ve really enjoyed hanging out with you lately.”
He smiled at that, which set me at ease a little. “So have I.”
My heart quickened as I chose my words very carefully. “With everything I’ve gone through lately, it was nice to have someone around who could not only relate, but you made yourself available for me. And given our history, that meant more to me than you’d ever realize.”
Antonio nodded.
“And because you’ve been such a good friend…I just wanna make sure that our lines don’t get crossed. I wasn’t being funny when I told you not to come pick me up; I just don’t wanna mess this up,” I admitted.
My words seemed to be sinking in, causing a little of the tension to melt away.
“I get it. I wasn’t meaning to make you uncomfortable. It just made sense to me for us to ride together.”
“I know. That’s why I wanted to clear the air.” I smiled at him. “We cool?”
He smiled back. “We cool.”
The waitress came, we ate, and by 7:30 we were ready to head for the theater. I tailed behind Antonio’s car and sighed when I heard my phone buzzing in my purse. The caller ID flashed AJ’s name and I felt all those bad feelings rushing back – the ones I’d been trying my best to outrun. After sending him to voicemail, I pitched the phone over onto the passenger-side seat. For the sake of not being disturbed during the movie, I just decided to leave my cell in the car. Almost an entire two hours passed while the movie ran, and I managed not to think of AJ every single second. Granted, he did cross my mind frequently, it just wasn’t as often as usual.
The walk back to our cars was a slow one – my reason being that I wasn’t in a rush to get back to my dorm.
“This is fun; I like hanging with you.”
I looked up to find Antonio staring me down. “Yeah…it has been,” I replied. “This is becoming sort of a routine for us I think.”
He nodded and then a moment later we were plunged into silence. Eventually, he broke it by asking, “So…still haven’t talked to AJ?”
I exhaled sharply. “No…and I don’t really plan to.”
Antonio was quiet. Since we’d been talking again, he only mentioned AJ occasionally, simply asking if we’d been in touch.
I looked Antonio’s way when he added, “Do you think you ever will?”
My steps slowed even more. “Not if I can avoid it. I have no interest in hearing his side of things; he’s lied so much that it makes my head spin.”
Antonio didn’t respond