I
have a date.
I have a date.
I
have a date.
I have a date!
I’m
excited, okay? As fun as my little
internet relationships could be sometimes, they weren’t the real thing. Not by a long shot. I mean, those were all really just based on
lies. Those guys didn’t really like me. They just liked the girl that I was
pretending to be. They certainly weren’t
attracted to me.
But
Brody likes me. He wants to go out on a date with me. Me! He wants to maybe even… Christ, maybe he
wants to kiss me…
Okay,
now I’m getting myself nervous.
I
feel woefully inexperienced for a 24-year-old going out on a date. I don’t know how to dress, and I’ve never put
on make-up in my entire life. The
average high schooler probably knows more than I do. Hell, most middle schoolers probably know
more than me.
That’s
why the next afternoon, I catch Abby when she’s coming home from her step
aerobics class. Her cheeks are bright pink
and she’s got her hair in a ponytail high on her head that swings back and
forth when she walks. She immediately
goes to the fridge, pulls out a bottle of water, and drains nearly the whole
thing as I watch her.
You
know what I don’t get? Water. It has no flavor whatsoever. I mean, I would drink it for nourishment, but
I don’t understand how Abby guzzles it the way she does. Like it’s delicious.
“Abby?”
I finally say.
Abby
lowers the water bottle and gasps to catch her breath. She wipes her lips with the back of her
hand.
“Emily!”
she says. She sounds astonished that I’m
initiating a conversation with her. I
guess I’ve been sort of pissy around her since she threw out all my food. “What’s going on?”
I
take a deep breath. “I need your help.”
Abby
pauses for a moment, then unexpectedly throws her arms around me. She squeezes me to her chest with astonishing
strength. “Oh, Emily,” she sighs. “Of course I’ll help you! I’ve been telling you that since you moved
in. We’re going to get rid of that
weight together, I promise you.”
I
grit my teeth. I’m starting to seriously
regret my decision to ask Abby to help me prepare for my date.
“I
don’t want to lose weight,” I say, pulling away from her stifling hug.
Abby’s
face falls. “You don’t?”
“No,”
I say tightly.
“Oh.”
Abby frowns. “Well, what do you need
help with?”
“I
have…” I pick at a loose thread on my shirt.
“A date. Tonight.”
Abby’s
eyes get huge like saucers. “You have a date for tonight?” She frowns, her pink lips pursed
together. “But I don’t even have a date.”
“Gee,
thanks,” I mutter.
Abby’s
cheeks turn pink. “I’m sorry,
Emily. I didn’t mean it that way. Honestly.”
Yeah,
I’m sure she didn’t.
Between
you and me, Abby’s social life is pathetic.
I know exactly when she goes on dates, and they’re extremely rare. I’m not really sure why, because she’s pretty
cute. And I don’t think she’s all that
picky, based on the few losers I’ve seen her with. I suspect it’s got something to do with her
personality.
“So,
um…” Abby forces a smile. “Is it anyone
I know?”
“No,”
I say, not really wanting to go into any details. For obvious reasons.
“What’s
his name?”
I
figure it’s safe to tell her. “Brody.”
Abby
nods, still looking a little gobsmacked.
“That’s so great, Emily.
Really. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,”
I mumble. Because what the hell else am
I supposed to say to that? “Anyway, I
thought maybe you could help me figure out what to wear. And maybe I could borrow some make-up?”
“Oh
my gosh, yes!” Abby exclaims, clapping her hands together. She’s apparently recovered from the blow of
her morbidly obese roommate having a date when she doesn’t. “I’m going to give you a complete
makeover! You won’t even recognize
yourself!”
That’s
highly unlikely. She can do what she wants
to my face and my hair, but she can’t change the most important part of me.
_____
Remember
that scene in Pretty Woman, where Julia Roberts goes on a fashion spree and
tries on a zillion different outfits, evolving from being a skanky hooker to a
gorgeous model during the course of a single song?
Well,
Abby giving me a makeover for my date is nothing like that. Nothing.
It’s definitely not any kind of fashion montage. It’s more like slight tweaking here and
there. Abby breaks out her tote bag of
make-up (Abby has literally ten million tote bags), and is able to successfully
add a bit of smokiness to my eyes. She chooses a shade of lipstick that isn’t
too whorish. She even does my hair with
a curling iron, and for the first time in my whole life, my hair isn’t frizzy. I definitely still look like me, but a better
version of me.
“You
have such a pretty face,” Abby sighs
as she examines her handiwork.
I
swear to God, I don’t.
The
outfit is more of a challenge. Without
even checking, we know there’s nothing in Abby’s closet that would even come
close to fitting me. Abby stares into my
closet for like twenty minutes, moaning, “Why is everything you own black?”
That’s
not fair. I own plenty of clothes that
are dark brown or navy blue.
Even
though it’s getting dangerously close to when I have to leave, Abby talks me
into going to the Urban Outfitters that’s two blocks from our apartment, which
is the closest clothing store. I’d never
set foot inside an Urban Outfitters before, and I quickly find out why—nothing
in this store is even remotely my size.
I’m
not even kidding. The only sizes I can
see are zero through eight. They don’t
even have size ten, even though I’m pretty sure I read the average size for an
American woman is twelve. Who the hell shops at places like this? Certainly no grown woman.
Not
that it would help me if they had size twelve.
I couldn’t even zip up a size twelve.
“We
should go,” I say to Abby. “I don’t
think we’re going to find anything here that fits me.”
“Don’t
be silly,” Abby says. “I’m sure they
must have plus sizes here. I think it’s,
like, the law.”
It’s
not the law, Abby. Trust me.
Abby
flags down a salesgirl, who seems like she could easily fit into any size zero
pair of jeans in the store. The girl is
a few years younger than I am, and is popping a piece of bubble gum as Abby
talks to her. When Abby explains to the
girl that we’re looking for an outfit for me to wear on a date tonight, I want
to hide under a pile of size 2 jeans.
(Except I don’t think they have enough tiny jeans to effectively hide
me.)
“So
where should we look?” Abby asks.
The
girl looks me over and practically starts snickering. “K-mart.
There’s one on Second Avenue.”
Abby
blinks, shocked by the girl’s response.
I’m far less shocked. If this
were an eighties movie, I would leave this store, and come back a few hours
later, looking gorgeous and skinny, loaded up with bags of expensive clothing,
and say to Size Zero over here, “You work on commission, don’t you? Big mistake!”
But
this isn’t an eighties movie. So I tug
on Abby’s shirt sleeve. “Come on,” I say
to her. “I don’t have time for this.”
In
the end, I wind up in a pair of dark blue jeans and yet another black
blouse. Abby is grudgingly satisfied. “You
only slightly look like you’re going to a funeral,” she says.
I
take the bus to the restaurant where Brody and I agreed to meet, even though
I’m sure it’s going to wreck the magic Abby did to my hair. As I sit on the
bus, trying to keep my distance from the open window, I wonder to myself if
Brody is thinking about this as a date or not.
Technically we didn’t define it as such.
But we never said it wasn’t a date.
So it might be. Or not.
I
could easily drive myself crazy with this line of reasoning.
When
I arrive at the Italian diner, I see Brody immediately. He’s sitting in his wheelchair, right outside
the door, craning his neck in the other direction to look for me. He’s waiting for me—he’s looking for me. He’s excited
by the prospect of seeing me. It’s
almost a little hard to believe.
Before
Brody spots me, I take a minute to check him out. He’s wearing a nice dark green dress shirt,
and brown slacks. For a moment, the
thought strikes me that Brody probably isn’t able to dress himself. I have no idea who dresses him, but he
probably had to tell that person that he was going out on a date and wanted to
look nice tonight.
“Emily!”
Brody spots me. He lifts one of his arms
to greet me and gives me a slight wave.
It’s not really a wave though, since his hand only hangs limply from his
wrist. There’s a woman walking by with
her two kids, and the kids stare at Brody so intently that one of them actually
walks into a mailbox.
“Hey,”
I say, walking over to him.
He
looks up at me and smiles winningly. He
is really just adorable when he smiles—it gets me all aflutter. “I got you something,” he says. And that’s when I notice the small bouquet of
colorful flowers on his lap. He grabs
them with his wrists and holds them out to me.
“Thank
you,” I say. I hate flowers—I don’t find
them particularly pretty and I have no idea how to keep them alive. But it’s sweet that he thought to bring me a
bouquet—that he actually went into a flower shop and purchased it for me. “What
are they?”
“They’re
flowers,” Brody says, giving me a funny look.
Does
he think I’m completely stupid? “I mean,” I say, “what kind of flowers are they?”
“Oh!”
Brody laughs a little nervously. “I
don’t know. The guy at the flower store
told me that they were…” He thinks for a minute. “Carnations, maybe? To be honest, I don’t know. I’m not really a flowers expert. Sorry.”
“That’s
okay,” I say.
“I
hope you don’t mind I got them for you,” he says. “I know we didn’t agree this is a date, but…
well, I couldn’t help myself.”
He
pauses, looking at me expectantly. I’m
not entirely sure what to say. Honestly,
I’m so nervous, I can’t really say much of anything. Finally, I say, “I don’t mind.”
Brody
looks a little disappointed somehow, but I’m not sure why. I told him that I didn’t mind he got me the
flowers. Was he hoping for a more
effusive response? Was I supposed to
make a big show of smelling them and saying how beautiful they are? Did he want me to do an interpretive flower
dance?
“Let’s
go in,” Brody says. “I reserved us a
table.”
I
have no idea what arrangements Brody made in advance, but he’s scored us a
table right near the entrance that already has one chair pulled away to make
room for his wheelchair. Right now, I
see another advantage of being with Brody—we don’t have to sit in a booth. I hate booths. Remember how I almost got stuck in that desk
in the classroom? Well, that happens in
booths too sometimes. I have actually
had to leave a restaurant because the only places to sit were booths and I
couldn’t fit.
As
Brody opens the menu by using the ball of his hand, I start to wonder about how
he’s going to eat. Am I going to have to
feed him? I can’t imagine he’d assume I’d do that
without asking me in advance. But then
again, how in hell could he hold a utensil with those hands?
I
try not to think about it as I focus on my own menu. Ordering food in public always makes me
edgy. You wouldn’t think my food choices
would be anyone else’s business but my own, but that absolutely isn’t the case. If I order anything more substantial than a
glass of water and a single lettuce leaf, I’m almost guaranteed to get
commentary. Are you really sure you should be eating that?
But
Brody wouldn’t say that. Not out loud,
anyway. But I don’t want him thinking it
either. So I guess I’ll be ordering one lettuce leaf.
“Is
the food good here?” I ask him.
“Really
good,” Brody says.
“So
you’ve been here before?”
“Of
course,” he says. “I wouldn’t take you
to a place I’d never been before. Got to
check it out, you know?”
I
don’t entirely know what he means, but I don’t ask. Instead, I study the menu, focusing mainly on
the salad section.
Our
waitress is a pretty young woman who looks like she could easily fit into
anything at Urban Outfitters. She smiles
skinnily at us, “What would you like today?”
You
know what I really want? The fettuccini
alfredo. Alfredo sauce, when cooked
right, has this perfect creamy, cheesy taste that makes me oh so happy. Just
thinking about it makes my stomach growl.
But I can’t order that in front of Brody. So I bite my tongue and say, “I’ll have the
house salad, no dressing.”
“Okay,”
the waitress says, turning her skinniness in Brody’s direction. “And what would you like, sir?”
Brody
frowns at me. “That’s all you want? Just a salad?
Without even any dressing?”
No,
that’s not what I want! Can we please not talk about it?
“Yep,”
I say.
“Emily,”
Brody says, shaking his head. “You should get whatever you want. Please. It’s
my treat.”
Now
both Brody and the waitress are staring at me.
I don’t know what to do. Finally,
I croak, “I guess I’ll have the fettuccini alfredo.”
“And
I’ll have chicken parmigiana with ziti,” Brody says. He flashes the waitress a crooked smile, “Um,
do you think you could have them, like, cut up the chicken for me, please? Into small pieces?”
“Of
course, sir,” the waitress says. Her
voice has a mildly patronizing edge, but I guess it could be worse.
After
she leaves with our menus, I’m terrified that there’s going to be an awkward
silence between us, but there isn’t. I
mean, there’s a moment of silence, but it’s not awkward. Brody is grinning at me, and he seems just
really happy to be here. Which makes me
happy too. The two of us just sit there
for a good minute, grinning like idiots.
“Hey,”
Brody says, breaking our sappy silence. He seems like a talkative kind of guy,
who doesn’t leave much time for silences. “So I was flipping through my
Townsend Harris yearbook last night. I thought we could compare notes.”
I
feel my smile slip. I’m not sure I want
to compare notes on high school. High
school wasn’t exactly a happy time in my life.
But I don’t have any alternative topics of conversation.
“Mr.
Jeffers,” he says. “Did you have him for
calculus?”
I
close my eyes for a second and picture a man with curly black hair and a creepy
moustache. “Yes, I did.”
“Me
too,” Brody says. “You know what
happened to him, don’t you?”
I
stare at him. “What?”
Brody
smirks. “You really don’t know? Oh, man.”
“Oh
my God, tell me!”
“He
got canned,” Brody says. “He was
apparently hitting on a bunch of students.
I thought everyone knew about it.
Did he ever hit on you?”
No. I was most definitely not the
kind of teenager who got hit on by teachers.
Even teachers of the creepy moustache variety. Doesn’t Brody realize
that? “Not really,” is all I say.
“I’ll
send you a link to the article,” Brody says.
I gave him my email address yesterday, and he sent me one email this
morning to confirm the location for our date.
The email was one sentence long and had like three typos in it. Usually typos in emails bug the hell out of
me, but I suppose I can forgive a guy who can’t use his fingers some spelling
mistakes.
“I
thought of someone in your class that I knew,” I say. “Knew of,
at least.”
Brody
raises his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“Pete
Glasser?” I didn’t know Pete well at
all. Actually, the only reason I knew
him was because he was kind of an asshole.
In elementary school and middle school, I got teased mercilessly about
my weight, but in high school, kids don’t do that anymore. If they have something negative to say about
you, they’ll usually say it behind your back.
But
Pete apparently had the maturity of a 13-year-old because he managed to make
several comments to me or within my earshot during my freshman year. Nothing that made me run home sobbing, but
enough to sting. The first thing I ever
heard him say when he saw the freshman filing out of the auditorium for our
first orientation was, “Wow, what a crop of dogs.”
I
wasn’t bothered so much by that comment.
I mean, there were plenty of hot girls in my class, so I knew he was
blowing smoke. But then when I passed
him, I noticed he nudged his friend hard.
“Holy shit!” he snickered. “Look
at that one! I think that’s the
biggest ass I’ve ever seen.”
I
don’t even like to think about the fact that I was downright skinny back then
compared to what I weigh right now.
“Oh,
right—Pete,” Brody says, grinning. “He
was a riot.”
“Yeah,”
I say, studying Brody’s face. He’s such
a good looking guy—if he wasn’t disabled back in high school, was he friends
with assholes like Pete Glasser? For all
I know, he was the guy Pete was nudging that first day. Maybe Brody really did push freshmen down the
stairs.
“In
our biology class,” Brody says, “Pete took that model skeleton of the human
body and started waltzing around the room with it. He almost got suspended.”
“So
you and Pete were pretty good friends, huh?”
Brody
narrows his eyes at me for a second, then snorts and shakes his head. “Nah.”
“How
come?”
He
gives me a crooked grin. “Because he was
a huge asshole, that’s how come. You
really think I’d be friends with the biggest douchebag in the class?”
I
blush because, of course, that was exactly what I was implying. “People change.”
“True,”
Brody says thoughtfully. He scratches
his nose with the back of his wrist. “I
wonder what Pete is up to these days. He’s probably either wildly successful or
in prison.”
“Isn’t
your ten-year reunion coming up soon?”
“Oh,
right,” Brody says, shrugging. “Yeah, I
don’t think I’m going to go. It would
be… weird.” He averts his eyes. “I wasn’t… you know. I didn’t need a wheelchair in high
school. I really don’t want to spend
three hours explaining over and over again to every person in the class what
happened to me. I think I’d rather skip
it and just look at the photos on Facebook.”
I
desperately want to ask him what did
happen to him. He’s got a certain
comfort level with his disability that makes me sense it isn’t a recent
thing. And the scar on his neck makes me
think it was probably an accident.
That’s about all I know.
Finally,
he says, “I was in a car wreck when I was 19.
Broke my neck.”
“Oh,”
I say.
He
shrugs again and that’s the end of it. I
have about a million other questions I’d love to ask him, but I decide to keep
my mouth shut.
At
that point, Brody digs into a pouch on the side of his wheelchair and comes out
with something that looks like a thick watchband. He drops it into his lap, and I watch him as
he manages to get the loop around the last four fingers of his right hand. “Don’t mind me,” Brody says. “Just preparing for when the food gets here.”
There’s
a pocket in the band, and Brody tries to get his fork to go into it. I guess that answers my question about how he
feeds himself. Considering I’m pretty
sure all he can move is his elbows, he’s struggling a bit with this. It’s a little painful to watch, and I’m not
sure what the proper etiquette is. “Do
you want me to help you?” I ask him.
“Nope,
I got it,” Brody says. He doesn’t
though. Well, eventually he does. It takes him about a million tries, but he
finally gets the fork attached to the cuff, and I see his shoulders relax. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m usually much faster.”
“It’s
okay,” I say.
“It’s
just frustrating,” he says. “You know,
like, exactly when I’m trying to make a good impression, I do everything much
worse than usual.” He takes a shaky
breath. “And now I’m even saying stupid things too.”
He
looks so incredibly nervous. It’s completely adorable. If I wasn’t so incredibly nervous myself, I
would have given him a hug. I wonder how
often he goes out on dates. I’m guessing
it’s not very much. He could probably
give me a run for my money. “Don’t worry
about it,” I say.
“Maybe
we could start over again, huh?” he says.
“Sure,”
I say.
He
takes a deep breath. “You look really
nice tonight, Emily. Really, really nice.”
Brody
is looking at me in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever been looked at
before. And it makes me feel a way I’ve
never felt before: attractive. Another
silence hangs between us and this one isn’t sappy at all—it’s very
serious. I get that tingling all over my
body, but especially in my underwear.
Of
course, it would be that moment when our waitress arrives with the food. My plate is heaping full of fettuccini
noodles and tons of thick alfredo sauce.
I’m sure this plate has at least a thousand calories on it. As promised, Brody’s chicken is cut up into
tiny pieces. He nods and smiles up at
the waitress. “Thank you very much.”
Brody
lays out a napkin on his lap and digs into his food. I try not to watch, but it’s hard. There are some moments when Brody seems
incredibly sexy, but this probably isn’t one of them. Actually, he’s not doing
terribly at eating, considering everything.
He spills almost nothing. But at
the same time, the process just emphasizes how impaired he is.
Meanwhile,
my own plate of food is pretty much torturing me. I just imagine my sister Camille getting a
dish like this. She would take these
tiny, ladylike bites, and end up eating the noodles for the next three hours,
and then only half would be gone. And
it’s not like she’d even do it on purpose—that’s just how she likes to
eat! I don’t understand how you can even taste your food that way, when like one
eighth of a noodle is in your mouth.
Still,
I try to channel Camille and take ladylike bites because Brody is here. I don’t want him to get totally disgusted by
the site of me eating. Then again, I
could be shoving food into my mouth with both fists and I’d still probably look
better than he does eating.
I’m
so anxious, I really wish that I had something to drink. I mean, something alcoholic. Brody ordered a water and he’s been taking
sips of it through a straw. I’m guessing
maybe it’s hard for him to hold a cup and he doesn’t want to sip wine through a
straw. So I just ordered a Coke, because
I didn’t want to be the only one drinking.
But I think alcohol would really help the situation right now. I think alcohol was invented for first dates.
I
swear to God, I was going as slow as I could, but somehow, all the food
vanishes from my plate. The alfredo
sauce was really good. If I were alone,
I’d be licking the plate, but I’m not alone.
Brody pushes his plate away when he sees I’m finished, even though his
plate is still half-full.
“I’m
done too,” he says.
“You
don’t have to rush,” I say. I feel
self-conscious that he ate half as much as me.
He’s a man. He’s supposed to at
least be able to match me.
Brody
shakes his head. “Nah, I’m good. I don’t walk and burn calories, so my
appetite isn’t that big.”
The
skinny waitress comes to take away our plates and we’re left staring at each
other once again. Brody clears his
throat. “So, um,” he begins, blinking
his blue eyes with much too long eyelashes.
“I don’t want to push you or anything, but at this point, I’d kind of
like to know if this is date or not. So
if you could tell me, that would be great.”
I
swallow. “Oh, um…”
“Because
right now, I would really, really like to kiss you,” he says quietly. “But if this isn’t a date, I won’t try.”
“Um,”
I say. “I think… yes. It is.
It’s a date.”
Brody
raises his eyebrows and a slow smile creeps across his lips. “Yeah?”
I
nod.
“Come
closer,” he says.
Across
the table is way too far away for him to comfortably lean forward and kiss me,
considering he has a strap across his chest, so I scooch over to the side of
the table so that I’m right next to him.
He stares at me for a second, as if doing a few mental calculations to
judge the distances. Then he lifts his
right arm, brings his wrist to the back of my head, and pulls my face close to
his. He goes about 90% of the way to my
lips, then I bridge the gap.
And
then we’re kissing.
Oh
my God, we’re kissing!
I’ve
kissed a boy before, if we’re being technical about it. When I was eleven years old, I was at
Marybeth Tanner’s birthday party and her parents engaged us in a game of spin
the bottle. They probably thought it
would be cute. I spent most of the game
simultaneously hoping I wouldn’t get kissed and praying that I would. For the first two thirds of the game, every
time the bottle would spin in my direction, the boy would claim it was pointed
at Naomi on my left or Heather on my right.
Then Matt Crane’s bottle landed squarely pointed at me, and there was no
way out of it.
“I
won’t kiss Emily,” Matt declared. He
wasn’t trying to hurt my feelings. He
was just showing the honesty of an eleven-year-old boy. But Marybeth was in charge and she insisted
that Matt had to follow the rules. A
hasty arrangement was made where he could kiss me on the hand. I felt Matt’s lips just barely graze the back
of my hand, his face scrunched up in disgust.
As soon as he was done, I made up an excuse about needing the bathroom
and ceded my turn to the birthday girl.
But
of course, this is entirely different.
First, because Brody actually wants
to kiss me. He’s not just doing it
because the bossy birthday girl made him.
And he’s not just kissing my hand.
His lips are on mine—it’s about as real as any kiss could be.
I
wonder if he has any clue this is the first time I’ve ever kissed a man on the
lips. It feels so natural, so right, that I don’t even worry (too
much) if I’m doing it wrong. At first,
Brody stays chastely on my lips, but then I feel his tongue gently lapping at
my upper lip, and I know he wants to get inside. I open my mouth to let him in, and oh my
God. This is amazing! My whole body starts to tingle as his tongue
dances against mine and I feel his stubble graze against my chin.
When
we finally separate, I’m literally shaking.
Brody’s face is flushed. He
mumbles under his breath, “It’s been way too long.” And then he turns even redder.
“It’s
been a long time for me too,” I tell him.
“I’m
sure it’s been longer for me,” he
says.
I’m
not going to play this game with him, because I don’t want to admit that no
matter how long it’s been for him, I’ve got him beat by a million miles. Even if he hasn’t kissed a girl since he
broke his neck, I’ve still got him beat.
“I
want to kiss you again,” Brody says and then he does. And can I just say that it’s pretty adorable
that he announces it when he wants to kiss me.
After
our second kiss, I can’t help but notice that half the restaurant is staring at
us. I guess we’re kind of a
spectacle. But I don’t even care.
Our
waitress comes by with the check. Brody fumbles
around in the pouch on his wheelchair and comes up with a credit card. It drops onto his lap and it takes him about
five tries to get it into his hand and onto the table. He completely misses the tray that the check
is in, but our waitress manages to figure it out.
It’s
actually impressive how much he manages to do without use of most of his
arms. I guess he wouldn’t have come out
alone if he didn’t know he’d be okay.
He’s been disabled for eight years, so I assume he’s figured out a way
to do most things.
Brody
kisses me one more time by the entrance to the restaurant. I have to bend down and it’s a little more
awkward than our other kisses, but still really nice. I think he’d like to take me home, but the
logistics are just too difficult so we bid each other goodnight with promises
of a second date.
_____
When
I get back to my bedroom, I look Brody up on Facebook. What can I say? That’s what people my age do when they meet a
guy they like.
At
least a dozen Brody Nolans pop up, but I recognize Brody’s smiling face
immediately. His profile is locked, but
I click on his profile picture to enlarge it.
It’s just a headshot, and he’s so incredibly sexy in it. I love his smile and those blue eyes with the
long eyelashes. I can’t even believe that I was kissing him only an hour
earlier.
And
then I start to touch myself.
I
masturbate. Of course I do. And I don’t think about food or anything ridiculous like that. (Some “clever” kid in middle school suggested
that I might.) I started doing it in
college, when I’d talk to men online or on the phone and we’d start talking
dirty to each other. And I’d imagine a
man actually doing those things to me, and I’d get so turned on.
I
wanted so badly for it to be real. For
Norm’s voice to reach through the phone and touch my breasts, my face, my
ass. In my fantasies, I was also the
kind of girl that Norm would really want to touch. In my fantasies, I was skinny and beautiful.
But
now the thought of actually kissing this man—not just a man, but the man on my
computer screen, who is just so incredibly cute, is enough to almost drive me
over the edge. I want to draw it out,
but I come almost immediately. And then
again. And again.
Brody,
Brody, Brody… I even love his name. His
cute Irish on Irish name.
And
best of all, my session is punctuated by a Facebook friends request popping up
from Brody. He sends me a message that
says: “Had a great time tonight. Can’t
wait to see you again. –Brody.”
Actually,
it’s more like, “Had a grt time 2niet.
Cn’t wait 2 c u agian.”
But
I get what his meaning is. He’s trying,
that’s the important part.
To be continued....
(Also, if you're enjoying this story, considering checking out my book How to Be Cool)
(Also, if you're enjoying this story, considering checking out my book How to Be Cool)
i just love this story, Ms. Annabelle :-) I so enjoy how you create male characters that are sweet but so sure of themselves while still allowing some of that human vulnerability we all love. As far as Emily's storyline, well, I think we have all be able to understand that side of things at least a few times in our lives. Thanks for making me smile, empathize, and get butterflies and tummy squishing feelings this Sunday morning (and all the Sunday's you post) :)
ReplyDeleteYou are so sweet! You are my one of my favorite authors, and I feel bad now that I have gotten behind on reading your latest. Of course, now I get the joy of reading it all at once. You have the most delicious heros ever :)
DeleteI love this story. The date was perfection. Look forward to reading more about Brody and Emily. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteAnnabelle, love this story so much. Great Pretty Woman references. Emily cracks me up probably because I've been there with the wait staff saying. Are you SURE you want hash browns. We can do salad or fruit. Haha. Yea and the land of size 2 jeans. Brody so sweet and vulnerable at times but knows what he wants and asks for it. Squishy is the word EJ, for the kissing.
ReplyDeleteAnd do you think that men ever get questioned on what they order? God forbid.
Delete"Big mistake" is like one of my favorite movie quotes of all time. :)
Gosh I love your writing Annabelle. I liked chapter 1 and since I never checkout the fiction blog didn't realize you had posted more. It was nice to get to read chapters 2-4 all at once. Can't wait for more. I wish I was having fettuccine Alfredo for dinner.
ReplyDeleteMe too!
DeleteI love this story, I also love your book, how to be cool, I purchased the kindle version on Amazon! I look forward to the next update!
ReplyDeleteOh, thanks!
DeleteEmily is so completely, absolutely realistic... Which is why I love this story!
ReplyDeleteSadly, there is a reason why it's realistic...
DeleteGreat chapter! They are so yummy together.
ReplyDeleteA wonderful story and an enjoyable new chapter! Thank you for the update!
ReplyDelete... I'm hungry.
ReplyDelete(Looove the chapter, especially Emily's POV, her attitude, everything =))
I love it! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI love this story....I'd really love to see how everything evolves between Emily and Brody
DeleteI love this story....I'd really love to see how everything evolves between Emily and Brody
Delete