Betting on You

I watched her go and wondered what the hell was wrong with me.

She was an uptight weirdo that I’d been stuck with on a flight a couple of years ago, yet for some reason, it’d been good to see her. What was that about? She seemed just as high-maintenance as before, just as easy to rattle, yet I was somehow disappointed when she walked away.

I pictured the crinkle of irritation I continuously brought to her forehead and realized that, shit—I knew what it was.

She was an open book.

Yes, she was a stranger, but for some reason, when I looked at her, I could just tell what she was thinking. Most of it was annoying and in desperate need of a shake-up, but I liked the lack of a firewall around her thoughts.

Of course, that was probably because my inner circle consisted of multiple people who were heavy into mind games. There was my mom, in an eternal battle with herself over Who to Piss Off—Kids or Boyfriend; my dad, who no longer battled at all but simply took sides with his new wife no matter what (while spinning his decisions as “good parenting”); my sister, who loved all of these new players in our life but tried to hide it from me because she knew I did not.

Add Becca to that—I never had a clue what she was thinking—and it made sense why Glasses’s open face was so fucking refreshing.

“Can I help you?”

I looked away from the door she’d disappeared through and back at the snack dude.

“Ah, yeah. Two popcorns, please.” I paid for the snacks, and as I waited for them, my phone buzzed.

Bec: Do you want to go to Kyle’s after this? Apparently he’s having people over.

I didn’t know how to respond to that.

Did I want to go to Kyle’s?Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

Yes and also fuck no.

Kyle was cool and his house was always a good time; on a normal night I’d be all about it. But after the promposal, I kind of wanted to be alone with Bec. It felt like something big had happened with us, and I wasn’t ready to move on from it.

Fuck. It was embarrassing, how sappy she made me.

It still felt like a trap, like our “us” was going to eventually implode, but God help me, I was happy enough with her to consider the possibility that I might’ve been wrong.

Perhaps all relationships weren’t doomed to fail.

I grabbed the popcorn and headed for the theater, wondering what Hall Monitor would think about that little gem of a thought. She’d raise that stubborn chin and feel like she’d won some sort of point, which would absolutely make me say something about her weird boots just to piss her off.

The boots were actually hot, but I’d rather die than say that to her.

But it didn’t matter.

No way was I ever going to see that girl again.