Fifty Words for Embarrassment

I suppose you'd like to know what the letter said now, wouldn't you? Sorry I left off there last time. It was getting too hard, looking back at that particular period of my life. Now do you see why I wanted to skip over all of this entirely?

The letter, I'm sorry to say, was unspectacular. It only said "Rhea, I didn't call you because I didn't want to give you the chance to hang up on me. I don't know when you and Florence are planning on coming back, but tomorrow I'm going t be at Lark's Pond from open until close. If you're up to it, come see me. Reed."

I looked outside. The pond was closed to the public at sundown, which was in half an hour. I wondered whether he had really been there all day, waiting. Before I could think better of it, I had thrown my jacket on, grabbed my keys, and run out the door.

I was shaking and altogether too full of energy. I decided to run there. If I did, I knew what I could get there in about the same amount of time as driving took. Hopefully this way I would be a little less jumpy when I saw him.

It didn't work. Probably I should have foreseen this, but the only thing my run had done was leave me putting more disheveled than before. I became immediately, painfully aware that I hadn't showered in almost two days. But Reed was there. I saw his silhouette against a tree. He was relaxed, strumming his acoustic guitar. As I crept closer, I heard that he was softly singing to himself.

He stopped mid-word when a twig snapped under my boot. I met his gaze in the dim light and almost turned back home. That was too cowardly, too embarrassing. I closed the distance between us and took a seat a careful distance away from him. "Hello," I said. My voice came out fainter than usual by far.

"Hello," he replied. Blast him. He looked and sounded like there was nothing the least bit tense in this meeting.

I squinted at him in the half light. It was very difficult to read his expression- difficult enough that I almost wished I had been able to come sooner. "is your eye..?"

"Lionel punched my face. In fact, your boys had a Guitar Hero tournament to see who would have the honor."

"What did you do to them?" I asked, though I had a faint idea- and I'll bet you do, too.

Reed looked at me solemnly. "It isn't anything I did to them. It's about what I did to you." Well, at least he wasn't acting too casual anymore. I winced and said nothing in response. What was there to say? I began to seriously doubt whether it had been very wise of me to come. Had he really been here all day, waiting? My mouth opened, ready to explain why I had come so late. I shut it. I owed him no explanations.

I fought off the impulse to explain again when he said, "I didn't think you were coming."

"I shouldn't have," I told him.

"I'm glad you did." Reed reached out and took hold of my hand. I found myself quite unable to push him away. I found it hard to believe that he had already broken up with his girlfriend-- that they were still together made this wrong of him. This thought I pushed away. As long as he was the one misbehaving, who would say that the blame rested on me?

Besides, I was upset and his hold on me was reassuring. We sat in silence for a small time, his thumb rubbing circles on my skin. I scooted a little closer so that I, too, had my back against the tree.

"You still have that phone number written on your arm," he finally said, his tone nonchalant. He released my hand, licked his thumb, and wiped it across my arm.

"Hey!" I wasn't sure whether I was pleased or annoyed. I hadn't been planning on ever calling Patrick and had only ever even met him for the purpose of making Reed jealous. It had worked.

"I see two possibilities here: either you like stringing guys along or you feel for me what I feel for you. In either case, you don't need him."

I inhaled deeply. "Leave Caleb out of this."

"What? I didn't say anything about him."

"Stringing guys along? What else could you mean? In case you don't recall, the first time you ever saw me, I was in the process of 'stringing him along.'"

Reed shook his head. "That was-"

I stood. "This was a mistake." I looked down at Reed, whose features were now cast in shadow. I wanted to get away from him, fast, but it would look bad if I went running off again. "The park is probably closed."

He stood, too. "Did you drive here?"

"No."

"Let me take you home." His eyes, illuminated by the moonlight, pleaded with me. "Rhea, it's dark out. I don't want you walking alone."

"Fine." Besides, the last couple of times I had been in Reed's car, a mix CD I had made for him had been playing. I was wondering whether he had switched CDs yet. Reed took my hand again and again, I let him. I felt more unsettled than before and I wasn't sure whether I was still upset with him. I squeezed his hand and he squeezed back. I inhaled, exhaled, and felt my anger dissipate. Now I had frustration only with and for myself.

***

The next day, I showed up at Reed's house for band practice. I had skipped school and spent half of my day sleeping, half finishing up a new arrangement that I was working on, an adaptation of Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King." I was thrilled to have it finished. I had spent the day in such a high state of agitation that I looked forward to the violent bowing that this piece required.

I clamored into the basement and managed, barely, to not react when I saw Reed sitting there casually. He smiled at me and I think I smiled back- it's hard to say for certain, as all of me felt a little frozen at the time.

"Rhea!" Gus threw his arms around me. "How are you? We asked him to leave, but he insisted on staying. I'll kick him out, all you have to do is ask. Hey, is that a basket of fruit?"

I grinned. Gus was always good for a quick cheering up.

"In fact it is. I brought you guys presents. I finally finished the Grieg and this," I said, holding up the fruit basket, "is a thanks to you all for having a contest where the prize was punching Reed in the face."

A cheer went up and Lionel and Marcus, by far the most serious of us all, rushed over to me for their music. Meanwhile Rupert and Gus tore into the fruit.

"You know, I think I've got lyrics written that could really work with this," Marcus said. Lionel was already picking up his guitar, closely examining the tabs I had written for him. It took a while to get Gus and Rupert to separate themselves from their instruments. This was time that I could have spent talking with Reed and if things weren't so weird between us, I definitely would have. However, I was stopped from approaching him on this one occasion by one simple fact- I didn't want to. I wanted to have a normal practice. I wanted to go without he horrible twisting feeling that I got lately whenever I looked at him for more than the smallest fraction of a second.

Paradoxically, I was glad he was there.

The boys took twenty minutes to try playing through their parts- though Marcus was scratching frantically on a sheet of paper, fiddling with his lyrics. Meanwhile, I plucked at my strings despondently, playing nothing in particular but wishing to look busy enough that Reed would not approach me.

Practice went on after that just as it always did. Florence showed up halfway through and perched herself on the couch, as far away from Reed as she could get. I loved her for that. I loved her marginally less for the way that she spent much of our rehearsal shamelessly, embarrassingly ogling Marcus. Still, out of loyalty to me, she occasionally spared Reed a glare. I saw him shift closer to her and try to start a conversation. This was ill timed - we were just finishing a song. When Florence said, "I have nothing to say to you right now," her words rang out in a fresh silence.

I grimaced. Everyone's eyes were fixed not on her, not on Reed, but on me. "How about we take a quick break?" I suggested. I had to ensure Florence's good behavior. I hadn't told her yet about my infuriating, frustrating chat with Reed last night. I was worried about her judging me as being too easy on him. I should have mentioned it, though so she would know that he had at least tried to make things better.

I was thwarted. As soon as I suggested our break, Marcus vanished up the stairs. Flo followed him too quickly for me to stop her. In what looked like a conspiracy, Lionel, Gus, and Rupert all made their way out of the basement, as well. I was left alone with Reed. I knew that I was pouting, but honestly, whose side were they on? I had bought them fruit!

I carefully set my violin in its case and took a step back, about to turn and flee upstairs, too. I collided against Reed. "Sorry I asked them to do this. I think that last night you were still upset. I-"

"Stop," I cut him off. "Everything's fine. I'm not upset. I was absolutely mortified, but it's over and I would really like to move past it. Please." This was as close to the truth as I dared get. Really, the care that everyone was taking with me, the anger with Reed on my behalf-- it was only adding to my embarrassment. I had never meant for anyone to know.

Reed's eyes met mine for the first time that night. They searched me, attempting to verify that what I said aligned with how I really felt. He must have been satisfied, because soon he was grinning. "Good. Thank you. Now, I never did ask, how was your trip?"

I laughed and, as an excuse to step away from him, headed over to the couch. He followed, looking at me expectantly as he sat at a careful distance away from me. "It was... not what I was expecting." I quickly summarized all that had happened.

"And you couldn't have done any of those things if you had stayed in town?"

"It wasn't about what we were doing, Reed. It was the experience, the feeling that we could do anything, that mattered."

"That's a profound excuse." His knee knocked into mine and didn't move away. I froze.

"Thanks." I grinned at him because I knew that's what I would have done if things were more normal between us. Heavy footsteps sounded and everyone came filing back into the room. Lionel winked in our direction; otherwise, we were completely ignored in a shocking display of discretion.

"Come on, Rhea! We can't have you needing to warm up again. You take forever," Gus whined.

I got up. "Actually, my fingers have cooled down a bit. I'm just going to run through a couple of scales, maybe do a quick sonata..." I baited him.

"If I ever hear another sonata again, I'll..." Gus trailed off, presumably searching his mind for a suitable threat.

I grinned a Cheshire cat grin. "Fine. I was working on a version of the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, but since you don't like sonatas-"

"I take it back!" Gus exclaimed. "Rhea, you're cruel. Are you really? That's my favorite one, you know." Oh, yes, I knew. In fact, I had been tinkering with this one for over a month, determined to get it right just for him.

"Alright. I'll try to have it finished for Friday's rehearsal." This was met by a round of cheers from the band. Flo whistled, but I thought that perhaps she was doing this for the sole sake of giving Marcus another excuse to look at her.

She could have saved her breath and effort. He already was.

Reed left soon after our rehearsal resumed, giving me a friendly wave. Florence shrugged at me and got up, too. It was Saturday night. She knew not to expect us to finish until almost midnight, knew better than to try and wait out the end.

Even though Reed was gone, I was left with a glowing feeling spreading deliciously through me. I felt like we had worked out every ill feeling that had been polluting things between us. I felt like everything was fixed. Of course that wasn't true, but it was good to, for a little while, forget that he had a girlfriend.