Page 54 of Surprised By Her

“Pass,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not, like, judging you for the way you grew up. I mean, I might tease you a little bit, but you can tease me right back. There’s lots of things you can tease me about. Ryan, I am twenty-six years old and I live with my parents. That’s so much material right there. Mama sneaks into my room and cleans it. She will literally wait until I’m not home and steal my hamper to do my laundry because I don’t believe in separating whites and colors. My point is, I’m not trying to be an asshole about your past.”

Ryan studied me for a few moments. “Thank you,” she said.

“No problem,” I told her.

“You know,” she said later as we were making dinner in the outdoor kitchen, “we could relax and go out. I know there’s not a lot of places nearby, but there are a few.”

“I’m up for going somewhere,” I said. “Maybe next weekend?”

“Or,” she said, slicing a tomato, “you could have dinner with me earlier than that.” She looked up and met my eyes.

“You want to have dinner with me next week?” I tried not to sound too eager.

“Yes,” she said, going back to the tomato. She’d said she had barely used the grill, so now was as good a time as any. I had to slap at a few mosquitoes, but Ryan had found a bunch of citronella candles and had the fire pit going.

“I’d like that,” I said. “I’d really like that.”

“Good. Are you okay if I surprise you?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s the good kind of surprise. Throwing me a party and inviting a bunch of people to scream at me is not a good surprise.”

She nodded and went to check the burgers. “I’ll make a note of that. No surprise parties for Everly.”

“Thank you,” I said, stealing a slice of tomato.

Ryan flipped the burgers and checked the corn and veggie kebabs.

“We are almost ready here,” she said, handing me a plate.

“I have anxiety,” I blurted out. “Like, actual diagnosed social anxiety. I don’t normally tell people, but, uh, I thought you should know. Since we’re going to be hanging out.”

Ryan didn’t let go of the plate, so we just stood there, both holding onto it.

“I knew. Sort of. Not specifically, but I could tell you were stressed out at Layne’s party. Is it being in groups of people that does it?”

I added a bun to my plate, and she set the burger on it.

“Parties, yeah. Restaurants. Anywhere that’s unfamiliar, where I don’t know what the expectations are. It’s like…you know that feeling when you have to get up and speak to a big group of people? I feel like everyone gets stage fright, but the difference is that my body tells my mind that stage fright is on the same level as someone trying to kill me.” I’d thought a lot about how to explain my anxiety to someone else and that was the best that I’d come up with. Everyone, on some level, felt anxiety from time to time. The difference was the frequency, the symptoms, and the severity.

Ryan nodded and began to fill her own plate.

I built up my burger and then grabbed a drink from the outdoor fridge.

“Do you ever have panic attacks?” she asked.

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I have medication, but I have to take it at the right time and sometimes they creep up on me. I have a therapist I work with too that helps me.” I hadn’t planned on telling her that part, but I guess I was going all out now.

“Therapy,” Ryan said, slicing her burger in half. “I should probably look into that someday.”

“I’m not going to say that all therapy is good, or that everyone needs it, but I’ve had really good luck with mine and she’s helped me a lot,” I said.

Ryan kept talking, asking me more questions about therapy, about when my anxiety had started, and it was all…comfortable. Easy. I didn’t feel any kind of judgment or weirdness. Talking to Ryan was a revelation.

After dinner she took me inside and fucked me slowly in her bed, making me come twice before she would even let me touch her. We showered off and I got dressed in the change of clothes I’d shoved into my bag. The plan was to tell my parents I went in the pool, which would explain why I was coming home with wet hair and a different outfit. They would know it was a lie, and I would know it was a lie, but we would pretend and I wouldn’t have to answer any weird questions about my sex life.

“I don’t want to go to work tomorrow,” I said, petting her abs. I couldn’t keep my hands off them in moments like these. We were both drowsy and cuddly in the aftermath of the shower.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself,” she said.

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