Status: On-going
Because I'm Here
The First Meeting
Tomas was—is—good-looking guy with a fancy watch and a richy-rich kind of smell around him. But by the way he holds himself, you’d think he didn’t know what his own name is. Not because he's dumb or something, but because his name is so prominent around town. Or at least his parent’s are. Tomas’s father is currently the mayor of our town and his mother was a gorgeous thing that had won the Miss Indiana contest way in the back-then. He never liked it when other other called him Mr. Wayne, because it he said it felt like they weren’t actually talking to him, but to his dad. Like he didn’t really matter in their eyes, but his father did. To tell the truth, I was a bit taken aback, too, when I found out who he was, but I never let it get to my head. Tomas would’ve hated that.
When Tomas and I first met, I was on summer break and I needed some cash, so I got a job at a Pac-a-Sac that my cousin Georgie also worked at. I had covered Georgie’s shift at the station reluctantly, albeit gratefully, that night because I really needed the money to help pay for the repairs on my old pick-up truck.
While Georgie lay in bed, coughing his poor little heart out, I was falling fast asleep at the candy counter with the glaringly red numbers of the digital clock slowly edging towards 11:00. I didn’t even hear the annoying little bell above the swinging door ring when Tomas came in. I didn’t hear him shuffle about the tiny convience store and grab a Pepsi from the freezers or an ice cream bar from the fridge. So far into deep sleep was I that I was aware of nothing until he came up to me and tapped my shoulder cautiously. Our first meeting wasn’t really our most graceful. I have a horribly bad habit of drooling in my sleep and I don’t think Tomas took to me to kindly when my head shot up and I pretty much spit on him. I gasped and grabbed a piece of tissue paper and promptly began to rub it vigorously against my face, all the while apologizing intensly.
“C-can I just pay?” he asked after several choruses of “it’s fine” and “don’t worry about it”. I don't know if he was just annoyed, or scared.
“Yea, sure.” I remember thinking about how much of an idiot I was, and praying against hope that he was a nice, quiet and shy boy. It’d be too embarrasing if he got together with a bunch of his pals and started blabbing off about the weird girl at the Pac-a-Sac that spit all over him the night before. I grabbed his Pepsi and ice cream bar and ran the scanner over them. “Thanks for coming,” I mumbled as he payed his due and made a beeline for the door. The rest of the night was graciously uneventful after that, and I was extremely thankful for it.
Several days later, I met him again at the store. This time I hadn’t been sleeping and I tried my absolute hardest to be as polite and ladylike as possible. He obviously remembered me because he tried his hardest not to look staright into my eyes, like he didn’t want to offend me or something. But my new change of personality must have worked for the better, because he came into the store again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Gradually our “thank yous” and “please come agains” turned into “how was your days” and “I’ve been really busys”. Then those words turned into intimate conversations and loud bursts of laughter at each others jokes. One day he suddenly came up to me after rumaging the store for about half an hour with me yelling at him between customers and said, “You want to go see that new movie that just came out Saturday with me?”
Of course I accepted. I would have never in my life declined his offer. But you see, Tomas and I only knew each other by way of gas station conversation. We couldn’t talk to each other very long or too often because there were always customers to attend to and more than once Tomas had come along with a whole group of his friends that expected him to buy what he wanted and get the hell back on the road. He didn’t know that I didn’t actually live in town and I didn’t know that there was a reason he always looked so nice and impossibly refined when he dropped by. And that was the problem. Because we didn’t know that we’d accidentally gotten ourselves into a huge mess that we wouldn’t be able to drag ourselves out of.
When Tomas and I first met, I was on summer break and I needed some cash, so I got a job at a Pac-a-Sac that my cousin Georgie also worked at. I had covered Georgie’s shift at the station reluctantly, albeit gratefully, that night because I really needed the money to help pay for the repairs on my old pick-up truck.
While Georgie lay in bed, coughing his poor little heart out, I was falling fast asleep at the candy counter with the glaringly red numbers of the digital clock slowly edging towards 11:00. I didn’t even hear the annoying little bell above the swinging door ring when Tomas came in. I didn’t hear him shuffle about the tiny convience store and grab a Pepsi from the freezers or an ice cream bar from the fridge. So far into deep sleep was I that I was aware of nothing until he came up to me and tapped my shoulder cautiously. Our first meeting wasn’t really our most graceful. I have a horribly bad habit of drooling in my sleep and I don’t think Tomas took to me to kindly when my head shot up and I pretty much spit on him. I gasped and grabbed a piece of tissue paper and promptly began to rub it vigorously against my face, all the while apologizing intensly.
“C-can I just pay?” he asked after several choruses of “it’s fine” and “don’t worry about it”. I don't know if he was just annoyed, or scared.
“Yea, sure.” I remember thinking about how much of an idiot I was, and praying against hope that he was a nice, quiet and shy boy. It’d be too embarrasing if he got together with a bunch of his pals and started blabbing off about the weird girl at the Pac-a-Sac that spit all over him the night before. I grabbed his Pepsi and ice cream bar and ran the scanner over them. “Thanks for coming,” I mumbled as he payed his due and made a beeline for the door. The rest of the night was graciously uneventful after that, and I was extremely thankful for it.
Several days later, I met him again at the store. This time I hadn’t been sleeping and I tried my absolute hardest to be as polite and ladylike as possible. He obviously remembered me because he tried his hardest not to look staright into my eyes, like he didn’t want to offend me or something. But my new change of personality must have worked for the better, because he came into the store again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Gradually our “thank yous” and “please come agains” turned into “how was your days” and “I’ve been really busys”. Then those words turned into intimate conversations and loud bursts of laughter at each others jokes. One day he suddenly came up to me after rumaging the store for about half an hour with me yelling at him between customers and said, “You want to go see that new movie that just came out Saturday with me?”
Of course I accepted. I would have never in my life declined his offer. But you see, Tomas and I only knew each other by way of gas station conversation. We couldn’t talk to each other very long or too often because there were always customers to attend to and more than once Tomas had come along with a whole group of his friends that expected him to buy what he wanted and get the hell back on the road. He didn’t know that I didn’t actually live in town and I didn’t know that there was a reason he always looked so nice and impossibly refined when he dropped by. And that was the problem. Because we didn’t know that we’d accidentally gotten ourselves into a huge mess that we wouldn’t be able to drag ourselves out of.