Page 84 of Electric Blue Love
“It’s just.” She bit her lip and looked all innocence and uncertainty. “Losing you last time hurt. I don’t think I could bare it a second time.”
My heart literally squeezed in my chest making it painful to breathe. This girl was going to be the death of me.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I pulled her into me and she wrapped both arms around me and held on tight.
And I wasn’t. Couldn’t. She was everything. I’d be whatever she needed me to be – friend, boyfriend, shoulder to cry on because giving her up wasn’t an option. I was going to be there for her - messy or not. Good times and bad, just like she’d said. I had no idea what any of that meant really, but I’d take cues from my 8B. My perfect little student.
Iwoke upthe next morning to two texts from Court.
Court: Good morning, 8B
Court: Can you meet me after work? I need help picking out an engagement gift for Leika. She told me I couldn’t give her cash.
I chuckled as I rubbed my swollen eyes and yawned. My face hurt from the sobbing fest I’d had the day before and it was a reminder of how much I’d missed him. Those tears had been in part because I was mad at him, but I’d been mad at him because he hadn’t understood how much he meant to me.
Me: Sure. I need to get her something, too. She invited me to come.
Court: Meet you at 6th and 34th at six.
I threw back the covers and shot out of bed more excited for the day than I had been in a while. Yes, I loved my job, but there’d been a sadness that floated over my days when Court and I hadn’t been talking. I wasn’t sure if it was smart to jump back into allowing him to consume my days, but I hoped there wasn’t any harm in us at least being friends. I missed his friendship. I’d missedhim.
I dressed in a simple blue sun dress and flats and tossed a pair of heels into my purse for after work. I was kind of glad that I would be meeting him straight from work. He wouldn’t be expecting me to be dressed up and I wouldn’t have to obsess over picking the perfect outfit for later.
My morning commute had become my favorite part of the day. Out in the bustle of the city with all the other people heading to work, heads down, headphones in, made me feel like part of something great. Some of the biggest and best companies were here and when I thought about what the people of New York accomplished from eight to five Monday through Friday it was nothing short of incredible.
I ate a granola bar as I walked the last block to the office building and then took the elevator up to the ninth floor. JC Engineering had the ninth and tenth floors. Executive offices were on tenth and the development teams, including mine, were all on the ninth.
I shared a pod of cubicles with two other new engineers, Robert and Jared. We’d settled into a comfortable routine with each other. We mumbled our good mornings and chatted a bit as our workload and schedules allowed. They’d set up a nerf basketball hoop in our area and people congregated to play and talk. I probably should have been practicing passing and shooting after work so I could join in, but as it was, I wasn’t prepared to embarrass myself and make it even more apparent how much I didn’t fit in by shooting an air ball.
I was the only woman engineer under the age of forty and I think my presence made my peers a little anxious. They wanted to treat me like one of the guys, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t even a tomboy – I was all girl. Girly girl. I always had been. Dresses and makeup were part of who I was, and it was even worse now that I’d invested in some of my own clothes and wasn’t wearing my mother’s hand me down dresses.
I couldn’t even imagine their faces if I wore my Court-inspired outfits. I’d worn heels for my first few weeks of work because they felt more professional than my flats, but there’d been a slight change – for the positive – since I’d switched to wearing my flats all the time. In the corporate world of science and engineering, people couldn’t seem to make sense of me. Why couldn’t I be a girly girl and an engineer without making people uncomfortable?
After our morning stand up where we all went around the room and gave a brief rundown of what we were working on, any roadblocks or areas where we needed help, and what we hoped to accomplish before the next meeting, I buried myself in work. Five of us newbies had each been given the task of writing software for one piece of a larger project and I wanted to finish mine first and I wanted it to blow their minds. If I couldn’t fit in by gender, I’d fit in by being so good they couldn’t overlook me.
I worked through lunch, nerves about meeting Court later were settling in and my stomach churned with unease. I didn’t know where we stood. We each had been hurt by the other and whatever we were then would be different now. A friendship with him wasn’t unrecoverable, I didn’t think, but there was no guise of mentorship to make our interactions calculated and straightforward. Who we were to each other had changed. Or had it? Maybe it hadn’t for me, I’d always wanted Court as he was, but I wasn’t sure he could say the same about me.
I pulled my phone out of my purse with the intent of sending a quick text to Court. I thought some sort of messaging now would make tonight less stressful, but I came up short when I saw I’d missed a text from Todd.
Todd: Hey! I’m going to be in town this weekend. Anything going on? Let’s hang out!
I let out a long breath as I read it over and over. Todd stayed in Connecticut as planned, and as he’d promised, he’d kept in contact. Some weeks it was a single text to say hi and check in, other weeks nothing, but he hadn’t been to the city yet and I’d been grateful. Whether it was fair or not, I couldn’t look at him the same way after everything that had gone down with his uncle and even without that barrier, his kiss hadn’t made me feel anything. No spark, no tingles. Nothing like Court’s. Maybe I wouldn’t ever be anything more to Court than a friend, but he’d shown me what it could feel like – how my body could hum under his touch and I wasn’t going to settle for anything less than a man who made me feel electrified.
Despite all my anxiousness for our shopping trip, I was running five minutes late to meet Court. When I finally stood before him out of breath and belatedly realizing I still wore my flats, I held up my finger indicating I needed a moment and pulled out my heels. Teetering on one foot, I slipped one of the silver heels on and then switched to put the other on.
“Okay, sorry, ready now.”
I waited for him to move, but instead he glanced down at my feet a moment and then back up at my face like he was trying to decide to say whatever was on his mind.
“You really want to wear those while we walk around shopping?”
I shrugged and wrapped my hands tightly around the handle of my purse.
“So, put the others back on,” he said motioning toward where I’d stowed them away.
“I’m fine,” I said as I took a few steps toward the store as if to demonstrate.
We walked up and down the aisles of kitchen and dining appliances and décor. Court was adamant that he wanted to buy something useful and practical for Leika’s new place, but I was drawn to the pretty frames and china place settings. I’d tried to steer him toward serving platters or fancy silverware, but he just scrunched up his face and shook his head at each item.
