Anger, Reunion, and Cold

A night or two later, I was laying on Scott’s couch and I just felt angry. Why had Dan put me in this situation? How could he not realize that playing the rebound guy, especially with your roommate’s recent ex-girlfriend, is a terrible idea? Why was he such a terrible friend, never really making an effort to hang out with me, talk to me about my personal life, or do anything together? We would he value any random girl over our eight year friendship?

I didn’t sleep well, especially with Bender pouncing on me during the night.

The next day (the days are really mixed up in my memory at this point) I was really tired, but Scott wanted to have people over for hangouts in the evening. Scott invited Amanda, Seth, Rebecca, Erick, and Ally over and we were ostensibly there to watch a movie, but somehow that didn’t happen and we all just ended up watching Youtube instead. I invited Emily as well, since I wanted to see her again, and picked her up over at her parents’ place.

Emily kept going in the other room to hang out with Rebecca, though, and seemed not to pay much attention to me. She and Rebecca took an instant liking to each other, perhaps because of the bad experiences they’ve had with boys lately. Rebecca, meanwhile, was trying to do her winter session homework, but that wasn’t going along very well. Then, someone (probably Seth), put on swing dancing music and we all started dancing. Amanda was there too and showed off some of her fancy moves with Seth, and Rebecca said “Hey Ryan, you should dance with Emily.” I was nervous, but I showed her the basics and we started having fun.

When I drove her home, I felt really uncertain about everything. She was still a little drunk and I might have had a little alcohol left in my system. I apologized again for everything and then we hugged for a long time. I walked to the door and looked her in the eyes and we hugged again. After everything, the months of waiting and uncertainty, the events with Daniel, the cell phone messages that never got reciprocated, I wanted to kiss her. I asked her, “Are you going to kiss me?”

“Not now,” she said, and held a finger to my lips. We walked outside into the cold where the cars were all frosted over and talked some more. Then, finally we retreated into my car. I told her how bad I felt about the breakup and that the whole thing had been a big mistake. She said she still felt awful about Daniel. Then, out of nowhere, she kissed me. Impulsively, as if on a complete whim. It was awesome.

We stayed in the car for a while, kissing in the cold before she finally went back inside. I felt so much better, but there was still a hint of anger lurking inside. If she felt this way about me, how had Daniel convinced her to see him? Could I trust her? Why did I have to deal with all this stuff?