Careful Steps, Love

Winning Gavin back had proved a much harder thing than I thought it would be. In the four days since I decided to “suck it up” (as Summer put it) and get him back I had only mustered the courage to speak to him once and he had turned away before I could get a full sentence out. Maybe this was an ill thought out plan after all.

“Maddi you look like you’re going to cry,” Summer said, having the courtesy to remove herself from Cliff before doing so.
“I’m not,” I sighed, even though I kind of felt like I was.
“Are you sure?” Jay asked and patted my back.
I was silent for a while, but then asked them the question that had been plaguing me, “Do you think I’ll ever get Gavin back?”

They all hesitated for a while, which was all the answer I needed. I guess I can’t blame them for being skeptical. Gavin and I never made sense together. I always questioned why he would want anything to do with me, not only because we were on opposite sides of the feud but because he was so popular at our school and I was such an outcast. Although that can’t be as important as I think it is because Cliff was risking his reputation for Summer.

“Of course you’ll get him back,” Jay was the first to break the doubt induced silence.
“You just have to be patient,” Summer said as she put her arm around Cliff.
“I don’t want to be patient though,” I said as the person I had just been pining for walked into my field of vision and quickly averted his gaze away from me when our eyes met, “I just want him back.”
“You know what,” Summer said and pushed me off of the table we were sitting at, “Go get him then. Now is as good a time as any.”
“Is it?” I asked as I realized that my left leg had fallen asleep.
“Yes,” Jay nodded.
“In fact it’s the only time. Go talk to him!” Summer encouraged.
“Okay, I will,” I said and went after him, sleepy leg and all.

His friends stopped walking before he did as they saw me approach, which was kind of hard to miss because I was alternating between stomping my foot on the ground and walking in a normal manner in hope of getting it to wake up.

“What?” he turned around to ask them, but then closed his mouth as he saw me.
“Gavin please just listen to me,” I said desperately as he began to walk away from me again.

He didn’t stop though and I looked down at my throbbing leg and felt tears spring to my eyes.

“Go after him Maddi!” Summer shouted, “You can do it!”

So touched by her very public support I hobbled over to him as fast as my sleeping leg would let me.

“Why aren’t you running faster? Go get your man!” Jay shouted, standing up on the table like Summer was.

If I'd had time I would have explained to him that I couldn’t run because I felt like my leg was being hit with an electric current, but I didn't. I was going to get my man.

“Gavin get your butt back here!” I called and tried to walk faster, but unfortunately he was still at least ten feet ahead of me and I probably looked like a complete dweeb limping after him screaming about how I loved and missed him.

It seemed pretty hopeless for a few seconds as everyone in the quad began to laugh at me and Gavin still wasn’t slowing down, but then the impossible happened. Cliff helped me. He got himself off of Summer (quite a feat considering they seemed to have melted into one person in the last week) and went up to Gavin and told him to listen to me for a chance. It looked like Gavin was going to hit him for a while but then he turned around and his posse scattered to the side to watch the scene.

When I caught up to him I was panting and my leg was still sound asleep. I wonder why paresthesia is commonly called being asleep because it really feels like the extremity is on fire.

“Gavin I know you don’t want to say anything to me, but that’s okay, I just want you to listen,” I said and continued when he didn’t walk away, “I didn’t go out with you to spite my family, I did it because I liked you.”

His friends giggled when I said “did it” and I actually got why this time because the other night Cliff explained inane slang like that to me.

“I don’t need you to forgive me and take me back right now, but if that’s why you aren’t talking to me anymore I want to make it clear that I would never use you like that. I really did love you.”

He was silent for one excruciating moment before saying, “I guess I was being a bit rash when I didn’t even give you a chance to explain that conversation you had with that one over there. Who should know that if he ever touches me again I will personally make sure he won’t be able to talk to you anymore without an electronic voice synthesizer like Stephen Hawking,” he looked over his shoulder at Cliff during this statement, “I also suppose it would be stupid of me not to give you a second chance because I have been utterly miserable since you broke up with me.”

A marvelously happy feeling swelled up inside me and I threw arms around his neck and hugged him even though I knew the entire judgmental school and my few extraordinary friends were watching. I could hear Summer and Jay cat calling, which was very embarrassing, but I didn’t really care because Gavin had forgiven me and I could finally feel content again and from now on we could not only act like we knew each other at school but act like we liked each other too.

“Maddi, why are you stomping on my foot?” he asked.
“My leg fell asleep, sorry.”

Then, to my delight, he threw his head back and laughed, just the way he used to when we were happy together, and kissed me. He kissed me in front of the entire school, my friends, my brother, his friends, and all the people that didn’t have particularly warm feelings for me and were still very frigid about inter-pizza parlor relationships. It didn’t bother me one bit that I was going to be in the most trouble I had ever been in when I got because I was officially, undoubtedly, the happiest girl on the planet. Only at that second though, because I’ve heard from lots of people that having children beats out even your high school sweetheart in the race to The Happiest Moment Ever. In the next second a new mother half way around the world might discover she is the happiest girl alive, but at that particular second, I was.