Love in All the Wrong Places

I was beginning to get a bit worried about Dave. Once we left the apartment to grab food from Waffle House, he seemed completely dazed. At times during the walk there, he would occasionally, and I guessed it was subconsciously, take a firmer grip around my shoulders as if he were trying to protect me from something. I would look up at him, and he was in a daze, just focused on walking straight ahead. I would just frown slightly and keep my grip around his waist. I don’t know what else is going on, but he’s seemed pretty pre-occupied since he arrived here. He would only shake out of his daze long enough to eat or give his order. I had no idea what all was going on with him, but I was determined to find out.

I could tell something was really up when he didn’t even notice his food arrive. What’s worse is that it sat in front of him for five minutes and he remained unmoving. This scared me. I began shaking his arm to get his attention, and he finally looked at me with a sad look in his eyes. I frowned slightly, kissed his shoulder, and told him that it was okay to be sad because I missed her too. He just nodded and began to eat. After a couple minutes I could tell he was still down, so I gave his knee a reassuring squeeze and continued to eat. He grabbed my right hand in his left and squeezed it back. I looked at him, and he looked at me, still with that sad look in his eyes. It broke my heart to see him so upset. He’s been there for me through most of my adolescent life. I had to be there for him. I was determined to help him get through this grieving period. Next to finding out who Jessie’s murderer was, Dave was at the top of my list.

Dave didn’t talk the entire time we ate, so the conversation was solely between me and Travis. Not wanting to recognize the severity of the situation we were in with Jessie, we decided to instead talk more about his image. We were still struggling on what to settle on for his image, but there were a couple things we did agree on that should be considered in determining his look. For starters, he was a joker; he loved to crack jokes and pull pranks. If he could make someone laugh, he was content. Next, he was as obsessed with music as I was. His taste wasn’t quite as old-schooled as mine tended to be, but he drew influence mainly from 70s rock, namely of the southern rock persuasion. He was a big fan of CCR. It helped that he had a Foggerty-esque voice. That could work in our favor, however we didn’t want to recreate CCR; he needed to be his own person. Knowing that he had a CCR influence, gave us great strides in coming closer to his style.

We were deep in conversation about the style influence of 1970s southern rock when I looked over at Dave and noticed he was still aloof. I lightly kicked Travis under the table to get him to stop his rambling and subtlety nodded my head towards Dave. Travis furrowed his brows for a second in concentration, looking back and forth between me and Dave before realization crossed his features, and he began to gather his stuff and leave some bills on the table to cover our tab. I lightly smiled at him and nudged Dave once again to gain his attention that we were leaving. He looked at me, then at Travis, saw him gathering his things, and slid out of the booth. Upon getting out, he offered his hand to help pull me out of the booth. I graciously took his hand and he helped me out of the booth. He pulled me out a bit quicker than expected and I stumbled forward, nearly knocking us both over. We laughed at the exchange, and he placed his left arm around my shoulders again, and I replaced my right arm around his waist. He opened the door for me and led me out the door. We began walking back to the apartment. We got a few steps out the door before I realized Travis wasn’t with us. I took my left hand, and reached up and tugged lightly on Dave’s left hand that was currently sitting on my left shoulder to get him to stop, as I looked back over my left shoulder for Travis’s whereabouts. We stopped walking, and I looked behind me and found Travis talking up one of the waitresses inside the Waffle House. He happened to catch my eye and motioned for me to go ahead. I rolled my eyes with a smile and hip bumped Dave to start walking again. He looked down at me and laughed lightly at me. I’d missed this carefree nature of mine and Dave’s relationship. It’s felt like years instead of the mere few months it’s actually been.

As we walked back, we were in a comfortable silence, taking in the calm nature of the downtown scene when Dave broke the silence.

“So Christy…”

I knew it was going to be a serious conversation by his use of my full name. There goes the effortless feel of our friendship. Bet we’re going to talk about the kiss in the park. God I hope not.

“…this is really difficult for me to talk about. I-I-I don’t really know how to begin this conversation other than just saying it forthright. I want to talk about that kiss in the park.”

Dammit.

“Before you completely tune me out and choose to hate me, please just hear me out.”

I looked up at him and saw that pleading look in his eyes that always broke down whatever walls I tried to build up around him. He always knew how to get through to me. That was both the blessing and curse of our friendship. I looked back at him, heaved a deep sigh, and motioned with my left hand for him to continue. He stopped walking, and led us over to a nearby bench to sit. I turned to my right towards him, with my arms crossed, and my feet out in front of me with my ankles crossed, waiting with an expectant look at what he had to say. He heaved a heavy sigh, turned to his left to face me, uncrossed my arms, and held my hands in his. He just had to make this difficult.

“Look Christy, what happened in the park that day…I really did plan on talking to you about what happened with Jessie. It wasn’t my intention at all to bombard you with that kiss like I did. I swear! I just, I made it to the park, and you looked so stunning sitting there on the park bench listening to your music. Based on the smile on your face, I’d wager to say it was The Beatles you were listening to; and the way the sunlight was streaming through the trees on your face…it reminded me so much of our date that we went on our sophomore year. The serenity you had on your face on that park bench took me back to driving in the car with you that evening. I know you weren’t into it and found it awkward, but it was the best day of my life, and still ranks pretty high up there despite getting severely friend-zoned.

When I saw you sitting there, I completely forgot all about what I came there for and was brought back to my 16 year old self. I began thinking like said self, and went to do what I wanted to do that night; kiss you with the passion you deserved and the passion I’d been withholding for the last couple years up to that point. I shouldn’t have done that, and it wasn’t until we pulled apart and I saw your expression before I realized what I had done. I’m so sorry.” He then dropped his gaze from my face, and began to rub soothing circles with his thumbs across my knuckles.

I sat there utterly dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe he felt as strongly as he did. I mean, I know he mentioned that he was in love with me and had been for a while, but I had no idea he was in as deep as he was. I looked at our hands and was trying to formulate a response. My view of him and our friendship was completely altered. Not in a bad way, I just now understood why he acted the way that he had been. However, I was still confused on his relationship with Jessie. I thought he was head-over-heals in love with her, and if that was the case, why was he still so heartbroken over me?

These are questions I needed answers to at some point in time, however now was not the time to ask them. I settled for removing one of my hands from his grasp, holding the side of his face, and leaning forward to give him a prolonged kiss on the cheek. He reached up with that free hand and held my hand against his face, as he then moved my hand down so he could kiss my palm, still never making eye contact. I stroked his cheek a few times with my thumb and begin to tug his hands to get up with me. I probably shouldn't have just done that but he's my best friend. He's in such a crazy emotional place right now. I'm probably not helping any, but I need to be there for him emotionally, but if he becomes too attached and it begins to hinder him in dealing with Jessie, I'll have to back off drastically. I don't want to lead him on.

He looked up at me with his puppy dog eyes through his eyelashes with a sad smile and got up with me. I smiled encouragingly back at him and pulled him up with me. He resumed his former position of his left arm draped around my shoulders and I replaced my right arm back around his waist. We were only a couple blocks from the apartment and we walked it back in a comfortable silence and trudged our way up the multi-flighted stairs to our current home. I got the spare key from the hidden spot by the doorjamb and unlocked the door, replacing the key back in its spot upon opening the door. I led Dave inside and we sat on the couch. To give his left arm a break, I decided to sit on his right side, and I curled into it, draping his right arm across my shoulders for comfort. He chuckled at my actions, and tightened his grip on me. I leaned my head on his chest, and pulled my feet up on the couch to my right side. He then grabbed the blanket draped over the back of the couch with his left hand and awkwardly draped it across us both, then laid his head down on top of mine as we drifted off to sleep.