Page 19 of One Little Problem
4. When bad plans go good
Otherwise known as, Ryan rocks, all hail Ryan.
Ryan
Scales were one of the worst inventions ever, right? Yeah, they provided helpful information: the weight of something. That probably had numerous real-world applications. There was nothing inherently evil about knowing how much something weighed, but there was just so much bad that came along with it. Because once you knew how much you weighed, you could feel terrible about that, you could make false promises to exercise, say the weight was going to come off tomorrow and then just perpetually hate yourself when it never did.
Or you could weigh a perfectly healthy amount but still want to weigh a few pounds less, and then criticize yourself for not being better. It felt like my life was a set of scales and like someone somewhere had decided the weight on the good side and bad side had to even out for some dumb reason or that having a disproportionate amount on the bad side and a tiny amount on the good side was okay but not the other way around.
Yeah, I couldn’t believe I actually wanted us to fake break up but maybe that would finally tip the scales, let me have more good than bad. Not this weird cosmic balancing act where things with Luke were good so things with our parents had to be bad. Things with Luke were good, so things with my dad had to be weird. Things with Luke were good, so it had to have an expiration date. I had to go away for the summer, and what if everything changed?
Oh, who am I kidding, things with Luke were good and that’s what I cared about, about having that for as long as possible. So, it was pretty easy to break up. We did it without fanfare, no public spectacle that usually went with the more important moments in our relationship. We were less obvious at school but most people either had gotten used to the gays being weird gay or tried to pay us as little attention as possible or just didn’t believe we would stay broken up.
Maybe I had a few nerves about this plan. I thought it would help but was still a risk. However, maybe the scales started tipping in my favor. Dad assumed I’d be super sad over the first real relationship of my life ending and was being nice; he hadn’t even really questioned me much when I went out on the weekend. He believed Alicia was going to try cheering me up.
Luke and I went to the planetarium.
We leaned back in our chairs, shoulders touching and hands joining automatically as the dark environment shrouded us and the stars were displayed clearly up above our heads. Nice view, even though I kept looking at Luke and he kept looking at me.
“So handsome,” he said quietly. “Tell me about the stars.” Almost thought I could see the light of the stars above twinkling in his eyes.
“Do you use that line on all the guys?” Maybe it was dark enough in here that he couldn’t see the smile fighting its way onto my face.
“Only the ones I take to the planetarium,” he assured me.
Right, yeah... But that didn’t really answer the question. “Just me, right?”
“Only you, moron.” I could both see and hear the affection and exasperation in his voice. Luke would probably get mad if he knew just how much I liked that expression on him. It was really sweet though, that ‘done with me’ quality he had sometimes but yet he never was done with me, like I tried his patience and he didn’t want to give me up anyway.
I batted my eyes and shoved him playfully with a hand, oh stop. “You’re such a sweet talker.”
“And other guys? If you’re implying that all bi people are sluts, then shame on you.” Not sure why but him playing the bi card was also pretty attractive. Maybe because he used to be afraid of it and now he wore it proudly. “And really, one boyfriend is all I can handle. I don’t have the energy to see anyone else.”
Yay? Not yay? “Don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not, so I’ll just roll with it.”
“That works. I don’t even know how I meant it.” Both probably. “Are you not going to tell me about the stars?”
“Are we back to roleplaying?” He rolled his eyes, so I explained, “You’ve been here before. I remember because I was there.” Didn’t he learn about the stars last time?
He looked away, a bit bashful, and admitted, “I don’t think I remember much.”
“What do you remember?” Maybe he was so blinded by my good looks and charm that all the educational opportunities had been wasted on him.
“Those things up there?” he tilted his head to indicate above us. “Those are the stars.” Then, like it wasn’t clear, “The twinkling things, not the black space in between.”
And he called me the moron. “Hope you knew that before we came here the first time,” I told him smartly.
He shrugged. “I just don’t remember that date very well.”
“Me either.” I looked away, feigning nonchalance. Which meant I probably should have just stopped there. I didn’t. “It was so long ago, and life is like… so much.” Okay, stop there. “Nope,” I continued, not stopping there. “Don’t remember anything. Not what shirt you were wearing.” A blue button down. “Or where we sat.” A few rows up from where we were now and a little to the left. “Or what songs were playing on the radio on the way home.” Little Mix and different Ariana Grande songs than the ones playing on the radio now. “Hey, maybe one of those could be our song.” Wait. “Except, oh right, I don’t remember any of them so too bad.”
I stared fixedly up at the suddenly fascinating stars. I remembered every little detail of our last trip to the planetarium and he didn’t. Whatever. Not a big deal. Our first date. It was important to me, but—
“I don’t mean it wasn’t memorable or anything,” Luke said, cutting into my impending freak out. He reached over and ran a finger along my chin, trying to get me to turn my head towards him. There was a sweet smile on his face when I did and he explained, “I was pretty tense that whole time. You were super pissed at me.”
Oh right. I’d been through the emotional wringer while fake dating a guy I wanted to real date and didn’t quite believe he wanted me the way I wanted him when he asked me out. “Do we have to remember that part?” I asked.
“It’s the part that I remember. That and that I didn’t want you to be super pissed at me because I liked you and wanted you to like me back.” Who cared about the stars when they were worrying about me? Not Luke, so technically, I was more important than the stars to him.
