Controlled Demolition

After what I now deemed “The Incident,” I tried my best to avoid Pete. It was just easier than dealing with what had happened. I mean, it’s not every day that your high school history teacher who also happens to be your neighbor and kind of also your friend kisses you. Even if it could barely qualify as a kiss. Either way, it still happened. It was an implied kiss.

Of course, the fact that he lived across the hall and that he was my history teacher made it difficult to avoid him completely. Class was the same, anyway.

When I walked into his class the Monday after The Incident, he just nodded at me and I just walked on to my seat. Anyone around wouldn’t be able to tell that anything had happened between us. We barely interacted in school. He didn’t make me participate in class and I abused that opportunity, usually just doodling and writing down my thoughts in the notebook I had purchased for the class.

On one of the occasions that we had hung out he had told me that I didn’t have to participate anyway, since we were kind of friends and he was in charge of grades for the class, obviously. Plus he admitted he was usually amused by the girls in the class that obviously tried too hard to get his attention. I found that whenever I couldn’t help but smile at whatever idiotic thing one of them was saying, I would look up and find Pete trying to hide a similar smile behind his hand. We would usually catch each other’s gaze and he would wink at me, our own private joke.

It’s not that these girls were bad people, or anything, it’s just that they were trying far too hard to seem impressive, and usually ended up saying something that didn’t help their case. They may have been better off just sticking their foot in their mouth.

After The Incident, Pete and I had a moment such as those in class. I was trying not to laugh at something someone had said, and I looked up out of habit, instantly catching Pete’s eye. And as usual, he winked, but instead of me just smiling I just felt my cheeks heat up and I looked down quickly, pretending to write something in my notebook.

Why did The Incident have to happen? Why? Everything just felt confusing and different.

A week after The Incident, I had Jess over and made sure to be loud and obvious about it so that Pete would know and get the hint. I wasn’t sure if I could honestly be around him right now. I wasn’t sure if things would be the same, or awkward, or different in another way.

“Do you think Mr. Wentz is going to stop by?” she asked when we went to my room. Jess threw her backpack on my bed, before plopping down next to it.

“No,” I said. “Why would he?”

“He’s your neighbor,” she said matter-of-factly. “Isn’t neighborly to pop in and say hello?”

I laughed and shook my head.

“That would just be weird,” I said. “Now let’s stop talking about school related things and watch a movie or something.”

After another week of silence at school, the Saturday after I had Jess over I almost knocked on Pete’s door when I got back from work. But I still didn’t know what to say or how to act around him. I had tried to get Jess to come over, but she had a date with some guy in our class who she had apparently been crushing on for some time. Is it bad that I couldn’t remember his name? I’m such a horrible friend sometimes… and it’s also the reason my only close friend is Jess.

I don’t really know why but I’m just not great at connecting with other people. Jess is easy to be around. We can joke around and watch movies and hang out, and sure that’s what everyone and their friends do together, but I’m just not good at doing those things with everyone. I’m awkward and quiet around other people and I never know what to say. It’s just how I’ve always been.

And then Pete… I’m just not really sure how that worked out because if I’m not good around other people, I’m definitely not good at being around guys. It should have been awkward, but it wasn’t. It was weird, of course, because he’s one of my teachers, but it was never awkward. Of course, it was awkward after The Incident. I mean, I felt awkward after The Incident. I didn’t have much experience in the kissing boys category, and after the barely a kiss with Pete, I didn’t know how to act around him.

I didn’t have much time to analyze it, I guess. Not that I even knew how to analyze it.

Two weeks after The Incident, Pete was knocking on my door after I had returned from bringing my mom to work. I just knew it was Pete before I even opened the door.

“Are you okay?” he asked, staring at me nervously.

“I’m fine,” I said, without hesitation. “Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

I thought about blowing off that accusation with a casual “No I haven’t,” but I knew we would both know I was lying. So I opted for silence.

Pete sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

“I’m sorry about kissing you,” he finally said. Before responding I backed into the apartment, prompting Pete to enter before I shut the door. This probably wasn’t a conversation we should be having in the hallway of the apartment building.

“It was barely a kiss,” I said, shrugging.

“It was still a kiss,” he said. “And you’ve been avoiding me because of it.”

“I didn’t know how else to react,” I said. “You kind of caught me off guard.”

“Again, I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was just overwhelmed and lonely, and you were there. And I really regret doing it because I was taking advantage of you and it was wrong.”

“I’m sorry I was avoiding you,” I replied after a moment. My stomach dropped a little when he mentioned regretting kissing me, but I ignored it. This was just an awkward conversation. “I just… Like I said, I didn’t know what else to do. Honestly, I kind of miss hanging out with you.”

“Really?” he asked, grinning at me.

“Yeah.”

“Good,” he said. “Now let’s move past this, forget it happened. I ordered us some Chinese, got you your favorite. Now go pick a movie.”

I smiled at him and went to my room to find a good movie for us to watch. If I had known that moving past The Incident would have been so easy, I wouldn’t have avoided Pete for two weeks.

If only I had known we were not even a little bit past The Incident.