I'll Forget About You

Somewhere between “Wow, it’s getting late,” and “We should hang out sometime,” the exchange of phone numbers was brought up. Of course, I wasn’t the one initiating the question. This was all Garrett. I did my best to maneuver through the situation with as little awkwardness as possible.

It was slightly nerve-wracking though. This was the boy I had gotten too into, too late at the end of my junior year, asking for my number. I’m really not sure how a few hours on the swings passed between us, but it happened faster than I would have thought. Really though, I wouldn’t have thought I would be seeing Garrett Nickelsen at the park in the first place.

He saved my number to his phone, and I saved his number to mine. Done deal.

I had no idea what this could mean, but as long as the Garrett was the one asking me to hang out and asking for my number, I had some sort of hope that it was a good sign. The first sign of any kind I’d ever gotten from him, but I had a good feeling about this.

Talking for two or so hours on a swingset late at night with someone I’d never exchanged two words with had to be a good sign, right? A sign of some sort, at the least.

He was easy to talk to. He asked questions, I asked questions. It wasn’t like we told each other a lot about ourselves, but it was friendly conversation. We talked about high school, what things were like after high school, friends, college. He told me about what his year at the college a few hours away had been like.

I drifted off into thought about what my senior year had been like. I was busy trying to forget him, forgetting the infatuation that clearly wasn’t going to lead anywhere when Garrett was going to be hours away from home, and we hadn’t even met yet. But then I decided to walk by his house.

And then I decided to walk to the park. And apparently he decided to walk to the park, too.

And that small series of events led to exchanged numbers, a steady blush in my cheeks, and that funny feeling in my stomach until I finally lulled myself into sleep when I got home.

The morning after that night was uneventful. Well, I suppose it wasn’t morning by the time I had awoken. Either way the few hours after waking up were uneventful. Mom was at work. I was too lazy to take the girls for a walk.

After showering I flipped open my phone to check the time, finding the screen alerting me that I had a text message instead of viewing my background.

That was fast.

He had asked if I was busy tonight. Of course I wasn’t. If I had found myself with twenty different invites to twenty different parties on this particular night I would have told Garrett I didn’t have any plans. This was my chance. It was knocking, making it quite clear that I should take advantage of the timing that had finally lined up just right for me.

Maybe this was it.

We made plans to meet up at the elementary school playground again, and from there I suppose we were going to decide on what to do. I didn’t really care much what we ended up doing with our night; anything would have flown with me. To say I was “stoked” would be an understatement.

I tried to keep my cool though. Unfortunately I can’t promise that my hands weren’t shaking on the quiet and short walk to the park.

I kept as cool as I could in the Arizona heat, along with the combined effort of being within a two-foot radius of Garrett. That combination certainly wasn’t helping me any, but I didn’t really want to be anywhere else but sitting on the same swingset I had been last night.

The sun was still aflame in the sky, the dinner hour having only passed recently. Most people were inside, or out and about somewhere else in the town. There was a sick little satisfaction in knowing that Garrett actually wanted to spend his time with me. Only me. For the night, anyways.

“So… what should the plan be?” he trailed softly, barely swinging back and forth on the swing next to me. The chains creaked as we both hovered there, our skin soaking in the sun while my mind was busy soaking in Garrett.

“Besides sitting on swings at an elementary school?” I joked with a laugh. Garrett joined in. “I don’t know. Movies?”

Neither of us approved of that idea though.

“Mall?” I tossed out.

“To… buy things?” he asked, with a pause.

“Just tossin’ it out there,” I said, defending my option.

“I’m a college student now, Alaina. I have no money,” he said, chuckling.
It was quiet for a few moments. Both of us were busy thinking, I suppose.

“We could go out to eat?” he suggested.

I grabbed a snack earlier. I wasn’t really hungry. Garrett didn’t have to know that, though.

“That sounds good,” I said, agreeing. “Any place in mind?”

“Oh boy…” he started. First we had to narrow down what we wanted to do. The next can of worms being opened was now trying to decide which restaurant to choose.

This was a task.

“Maybe we could just drive around and see what comes along?”

He nodded, looking out at the field in front of the swings. “Yeah, that sounds good, actually. There’s just so much around. Hard to choose, y’know.”

“Yeah,” I said, laughing, “I know.”

It was a few more moments before either of us actually made an effort to stand up. It was peaceful on the playground, slowly entrancing both of us. Nothing sounded better than just sitting here, listening to the quiet. But Garrett stood up, sighing.

The way the evening light shined on his face illuminated his blue eyes, highlighting his brassy hair that was cut much differently today than it had been during his senior year. He was different now, I could tell. It made me wonder what he had been like in high school, when I’d never gotten the chance to know him.

I was happy he knew me now, and that I knew him. Little of him still, as we still had a lot of “getting to know each other” to do.

He stood there, looking at me. I squinted from the setting sun invading my eyes, slowly standing up as well.

“To my house?” he proposed, inferring that his car was there. I assumed that we were walking back to his house, then taking the car. I was correct.

People were sitting on porches, or working in the yard, or their voices were heard from the backyards that were hosting parties or dinners. It was peaceful. It was summer. Everything was beautiful. And I’d say I had the most beautiful part of Tempe walking right next to me.

“I still can’t stop wondering how you’ve lived here for so long…” he started, trailing off while he cast his blue eyes over to mine.

“And we never even met,” I finished. Yes, I wondered the same thing. Day in and day out. And then I gave up, just accepting the fact that sometimes people just aren’t supposed to meet.

“Crazy, isn’t it?” he asked, hands shoved in the pockets of his cuffed skinny jeans.

“Completely.”

“Why don’t you think we ever bumped into each other earlier?” he questioned. “I mean, we went to the same middle school, same high school. One year apart. It doesn’t make sense.”

Infatuation doesn’t make sense. Getting wrapped up in someone you don’t even know doesn’t make sense. And I still don’t know Garrett completely, and yet I still find myself wrapped up in him, again.

“I guess we were just always on separate paths,” I said airily. “Maybe we were always going in opposite directions.”

Maybe our timing was just minutes off, seconds perhaps. Maybe it was a matter of minutes or seconds that had always kept us from meeting.

“Maybe that’s it,” he agreed.

It was a quiet walk to his house from then on, perhaps the two of us both lost in thoughts of things that could have happened should we have met earlier than this. Or maybe that was just me. I’d always be wondering, questioning. It was always a difficult task for me to want to accept the present and deal with what I have.

There was always more. More that I didn’t have, could’ve had.

I had Garrett now, didn’t I? I had his company, that was it. I had neither his head nor his heart.

Not yet.

We approached Garrett’s house, and from the beginning of the street I could see the yellow Chevy, waiting for us. Garrett pulled some keys from one of his pockets, unlocking the driver’s side door before flipping a switch that unlocked the rest of the doors. I slid into the cloth seat, shutting the door as Garrett turned on the car, the engine revving.

He pulled away from the curb, heading down the street slowly while fiddling with the stereo.

“Music?” He shot a glance my way, those piercing blue eyes summoning a smile from my lips right away.

“Anything is good,” I said easily.

“Alrighty then,” he said with a devilish smile. “Prepare yourself.”

I laughed, until the blasting of the music stopped me dead in my tracks. My ears were in a state of shock for the first ten seconds, but then it was smooth sailing.

This boy liked his metal.

The windows were rolled down and I felt the warm evening air wrapping around me, blowing strands of my hair across my face. We cruised the streets, Garrett handling the small yellow car with ease as we weaved through the suburban parts of town. Not many restaurants appealed to us, as Garrett listed off the options, neither of us approving. So he continued to drive, taking turns here and there when driving along the same street got boring.

I watched as he tapped along to the beats on the steering wheel, his eyes focused on the road while my eyes focused on him.

“McD’s, Chipotle, Wendy’s, Dairy Queen, Friday’s, Applebees,” he muttered, turning down the music only slightly. It appeared as if neither of us could decide on anything.

“Chipotle?” It sounded like it would suffice. Large amounts of food for hardly any money. Always a plus.

The corners of Garrett’s mouth twitched, he nodded and took a few more turns. The music filled the empty space between us, and yet at the same time it didn’t feel empty at all.

He pulled into the parking lot, shutting off the stereo before turning off the car. I stepped out into the air, feeling it squeeze me with its heat. I took shelter in the air-conditioned restaurant and Garrett quickly followed. We looked at the menu for a few moments, deciding what we wanted before Garrett ushered me forward, telling me to order first.

I tried to restrain a small blush when Garrett offered to pay for me. It wasn’t exactly clear whether this was a date or not, and I wasn’t sure I cared either way. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. What if Garrett was just being nice? We were hanging out. That was all. A dinner included was the only other component. No romantic comedy movie thrown in there. No walking me to my front door while I awkwardly fumbled with keys and tried to decide if we were going to kiss or not.

At least I hoped that wasn’t how this was going to end. Garrett didn’t seem like that type of boy, anyways. And I certainly wasn’t that type of girl.

I was unconventional. Unorthodox with more than a hint of nonconformity.

And somehow I think Garrett was slightly like me.

Because when we finished eating and headed back to the car, the blasting of the metal music and the smiles and laughs shared between us for no reason at all told me he was different. Different in a good way, of course. Unconventional. Unorthodox with more than a hint of nonconformity and not a care in the world what anyone could think of him and his yellow Chevy, with the screams and the growls escaping from the rolled down windows.

The sun was setting now, only a sliver of the fireball left in view as we sped along backroads. Garrett would swerve and laugh, and I would tell him to stop amidst the laughs bubbling from my mouth. No other cars were on the road with us, and Garrett went so far as to drive in the other lane, laughing and smiling while he would look over at me and my face of worry. I half-warned him that a cop could appear out of nowhere, but with the way he continued to do it, told me he didn’t care. I gave up on my argument, sliding around in my seat while we swerved around.

Finally he regained his composure and stuck to his side of the road, driving in a straight line. And suddenly it just wasn’t as fun.

I thought Garrett was going to drop me off at my house, but he kept driving. Passing my house and making another turn, it was obvious where we were heading. Back to the park. I smiled, stepping out of the car in the elementary school parking lot. Garrett was quick behind me, walking to the swings.

He took a spot on the same one he had the first night I talked to him. I took the same one I had that special night, too. Maybe it was just where we would always sit now.

The sun was gone now, and yet I had a feeling the night was nowhere close to over. At least I hoped it wasn’t. I just wanted to sit here with Garrett for the rest of the night, even into the morning. We didn’t have to even say anything. We still barely knew each other, but it wasn’t like we were dying for answers to personal questions about each other. It was nice.

We started talking after a few moments of silence though, Garrett initiating the conversation. Music. He wanted to talk about music. It was fair enough though, because I certainly was curious about what his iTunes library looked like. It seemed like we had barely transitioned out of our conversation about music and into the ponderings about the future before I decided to check the time on my phone.

Minutes must have raced by like seconds, for it was already pushing one in the morning.

I told Garrett I should probably go. It wasn’t even that late, but only now was I realizing how numb my rear end had become, upon sitting on the swings for a good few hours.

He said he’d drive me home, and he did. Music wasn’t played while we cruised the streets of the neighborhood. The drive was short, only about thirty seconds, one minute at the most. Garrett pulled into my driveway, parking the car.

And here I was, stuck deciding whether I should kiss him or not. I wasn’t on the porch, fumbling with the keys while Garrett was right there, waiting. But I was sitting in his passenger seat, looking at those blue eyes and thinking at a hundred miles a minute.

I didn’t even have definite feelings for Garrett yet and somehow things were already complicated. I knew what I was doing. Both to myself and to Garrett. The ball hadn’t even started rolling yet and I was already dragging myself into a mess

I couldn’t bring myself to kiss him. Not then.