She Can't Read Minds

“How’s it going?” Jenna asked over the phone that night. I looked at my finger nails, examining them. She was sleeping over at Bridget’s. I was having dinner with the people who I was trying to avoid. Lucky girls.

“Not much,” I told them, “my mom made pizza. Will’s teaching Grey the accurate way to fall in love with videogames. The others are sitting around, oh, and Bob is chatting non-stop about beer. I swear Lucas wants to murder him.” I smiled. I love Bob.

“You’re hiding in a closet, aren’t you?” Bridget asked, confirming that I was-in fact-on speaker phone. I sighed, looking around the content of my closet. It’s dark in here suddenly came to mind. Wow, I’m deep.

Rolling my eyes at my own thoughts, I said, “Pretty much.”

“You can’t stay in there forever, hon.” Jenna warned me just as someone slid open the closet door and stared down at me. They laughed adorably, sitting down as if everything were fine in the world. I stared at him in awe. “Andi, who’s that?”

“I, uh, gotta go. Love you guys.” I mumbled, not removing my eyes from the person in the closet beside me. That’s when everything went silent. Right after I pressed the talk button, ending their pleading for me not to.

“So…”

“I’m sorry for what happened…with you…before.” I spoke, tucking some of my hair behind my ear so I could see him better. He nodded, biting on his bottom lip. “I didn’t mean it, well, I did, but not in the way you thought I did. I meant it as more of, look, I can’t tell you. Not here and not right now. It’d be bad timing. Everything would just get worse.”

“It’s okay, Miranda,” the person reassured me, “when you’re ready.” I stared at him, feeling the now normal feelings grow stronger for a second before he spoke again, “More than a week ago, we barely spoke to each other. If we even knew each other, really. Now we’re close and…I’d hate to lose you, Rand-Rand. Isn’t it funny?” He was smiling, making me smile just because he could.

“Not really.” I chuckled though.

“Well, not in a ha-ha kind of way, in a strange kind of way. Like,” he sighed, giving me a look like he was thinking hard about it, “I don’t know how to explain it to you correctly. Sort of ironic, but not ironic.” I rolled my eyes at him.

“That made no sense.”

“It did up here.” He laughed, tapping his forehead twice.

“Then up there,” I reached over and tapped his forehead like he did, “makes no sense to us out here.” He rolled his eyes at me, swatting my hand from his face.

“Remember when we saw the movie?” He asked, focusing onto me with a thoughtful and caring smile. I nodded. “I miss it. I had so much fun with you.” I felt myself grinning from ear-to-ear. For some reason, though I didn’t want to tell him I missed it too so I just gave him a nod. “What happened? Why can’t we do that again?”

“Because, now, it’s not right.”

“What are you talking about?” I shook my head and slid open the closet door. My mom shouted out to everyone it was time to eat. He followed me all the way to the dinner table where he sat beside Leslie and I sat beside Cal.

The whole time Markus watched me.