Page 40 of Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling

“I’m just being real with you!” he laughs, smacking me back and then hopping over to the other side of the room.

I toss a pillow after him and he whips his hoodie from his waist like it’s some sort of secret weapon, but before he can swat me with it, Greg steps between us. “Um, shouldn’t you respond?”

“Huh, yeah... you’re right,” I say. I rub my hands over my face. “But, like, what do I even say?”

“Nothing,” Yobani says. “You say nothing. You don’t want her to think you’re sitting around waiting for your text. That’s like Dating 101.”

“I thought we established you didn’t have the authority to teach that course,” Greg says, smirking.

“You shut your mouth, Gruly!”

“But she can see that I read it,” I interrupt them. “Won’t that make me look like a dick? If I just don’t respond?”

“Why do you have your read receipts on?” Yobani yells, throwing his hands out. “Are you some kind of monster?!”

“I agree,” Greg says. “Read receipts are definitely monster-adjacent behavior. Let’s fix that for you now.” He takes my phone from my hands, navigating to the settings page.

“Well, I can’t go back and be less of a monster at this point.” I roll my eyes. “So what do I say?”

“Tell her you’re coming over.” Greg shrugs and hands my phone back to me. “You want to see her. This is your chance to see her.”

“Youcannotdo that,” Yobani says, all intense like we’re tryingto diffuse a bomb instead of send a text. “You can’t just run over there right when she beckons. You want her to think you have a life! Girls like it when you have a life!”

Greg shakes his head. “I’m telling you, all these games are a waste of time. People like it when you’re authentic. When you say what you mean and mean what you say.”

“Ugh! You sound like my father.” Yobani wrinkles his nose.

“Pretty sure your parents have been married for a long time, so maybe that’s not a bad thing?”

They continue to bicker, more and more concerned with dunking on each other than helping me (Gruldaito Gloomcloud’s seducing prowess gets brought up again, for some reason). My head spins trying to determine the right course of action here. Yeah, I want to sprint over there and declare my undying...likefor her. But I’ve only gotten this far with Delilah by playing games, being cool and confident instead of my authentic self-conscious, quiet, nerdy-on-the-down-low self. She likes that front, not who I really am. And maybe listening to Yobani here is the right move to keep up that front.

I type my response so the voice-to-text won’t pick up the guys’ argument (that has somehow come around to what went down with Slarog the cloud giant), and then interrupt them to get their eyes on it.

That sounds cool! Will head over in a little while.

“Perfect,” Yobani says, miming a chef’s kiss.

“It’s not what I would do,” Greg says. “But I guess it makes you look... busy?”

And I want to look busy. I want to look like I have this big, cool life—one she might want to be a part of.

I hit send. Then I stare at the clock, waiting for what can reasonably be considered “a little while” to pass.

Delilah

Reggie isn’t coming.

It was easy to convince myself otherwise when only thirty minutes had passed and Leela showed up, all secret smiles and waggling eyebrows.

But then we hit an hour. And then an hour and a half. Leela’s face turns stormy as she aggressively taps out messages on her phone, and Ryan’s excitement shifts to something strained.

My throat feels tight and my stomach feels sloshy when I realize exactly what has happened. Reggie is standing me up. And I need to go,right now, before I embarrass myself any more.

“I think I’m going to head out,” I say, standing up.

“No, don’t do that,” Ryan says. “We can still hang out without Reggie.” So, she’s well aware that he’s not coming too.

“Yeah, fuck Reggie!” Leela shouts, but then quickly adds, “I mean, I love Reggie. He’s a really good guy. And I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why he’s not here... but also I kinda want to kill him right now.”

---