all I know is (2)
Oct. 2nd, 2010 06:45 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
thegraduate09.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ingoodsentencesOne.
‘Friends’ is not as bad as he secretly thought it would be.
Actually, ‘friends’ is not as platonic as he thought. There are still looks, and a good bit of flirting, they still go dancing. Fairly regularly, even. But he doesn’t kiss her, and she doesn’t let herself into his apartment. He doesn’t touch her randomly, for no reason, and she doesn’t keep pajamas in his closet.
She dates, occasionally, rarely the same man more than once, he sees a fellow teacher for a couple weeks.
Months pass. They only slip up once - her birthday, she says all she wants is some high quality tequila, no cake, but he gets her one anyways - his fatal flaw, he fetches two pieces and she starts to unbutton her top. He’s weak - he doesn’t have the heart to tell her to put her clothes back on.
There’s no message on the fridge that time, which he takes as a hint to stay silent. He does.
~~~
He meets her children - well, meets Jackson as ‘Adam’ instead of Mr. Torres, ‘but only outside of school,’ and meets her daughter, 6 years old, Elena - but god help you if you try and shorten it.
They actually have conversations, he tells her about his brief and futile attempt at being an accountant, and becomes the butt of even more of her jokes, and she tells him about her life since graduation, with a few more extremely gross details about pregnancy than needed.
He goes on vacation again - this time, during the school year, finally he feels ready to have that final surgery, and he’s staying with Drew for the healing period. - and they only talk once while he’s gone. She doesn’t ask why he’s going away, and he doesn’t volunteer it.
It’s comfortable, but it still feels a little wrong, he can’t help thinking they haven’t hit their balance yet, but he doesn’t say anything.
~~~
Her house gets termites. Her kids go to stay with their fathers, while it’s being tented, and she shows up at his door with a sleeping bag, of all things. He’s run low on groceries, so they end up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the living room floor and playing games.
Go Fish becomes War, War becomes Connect Four, and around midnight Truth or Dare gets suggested.
It goes as well as could be expected. He sticks to safe questions, the most interesting being her favorite color - she can’t decide. She doesn’t - asking bizarre things, everything she’s ever wanted to know, he thinks, and eventually he tells her she can just ask whatever she wants.
It takes her twenty minutes - and it doesn’t make him feel at all reassured that she’s a bit nervous - to ask why he spends time with her. It takes him five seconds to sit forward, grab her hands, meet her eyes, and say, simply, “I like you.”
Strangely, he feels absolutely calm, and capable of seeing this moment for exactly what it is. Just one moment, one more turning point, not the end all be all of anything. Not even one page in the story, just a paragraph.
And he thinks he sees her more clearly, too.
~~~
The clarity goes away the next day - he’s never going to be able to think - at all, forget clearly - when he wakes up with her, naked, in his bed.
But he’s okay with that.
And he’s going to do his best to keep her there, this time.
‘Friends’ is not as bad as he secretly thought it would be.
Actually, ‘friends’ is not as platonic as he thought. There are still looks, and a good bit of flirting, they still go dancing. Fairly regularly, even. But he doesn’t kiss her, and she doesn’t let herself into his apartment. He doesn’t touch her randomly, for no reason, and she doesn’t keep pajamas in his closet.
She dates, occasionally, rarely the same man more than once, he sees a fellow teacher for a couple weeks.
Months pass. They only slip up once - her birthday, she says all she wants is some high quality tequila, no cake, but he gets her one anyways - his fatal flaw, he fetches two pieces and she starts to unbutton her top. He’s weak - he doesn’t have the heart to tell her to put her clothes back on.
There’s no message on the fridge that time, which he takes as a hint to stay silent. He does.
~~~
He meets her children - well, meets Jackson as ‘Adam’ instead of Mr. Torres, ‘but only outside of school,’ and meets her daughter, 6 years old, Elena - but god help you if you try and shorten it.
They actually have conversations, he tells her about his brief and futile attempt at being an accountant, and becomes the butt of even more of her jokes, and she tells him about her life since graduation, with a few more extremely gross details about pregnancy than needed.
He goes on vacation again - this time, during the school year, finally he feels ready to have that final surgery, and he’s staying with Drew for the healing period. - and they only talk once while he’s gone. She doesn’t ask why he’s going away, and he doesn’t volunteer it.
It’s comfortable, but it still feels a little wrong, he can’t help thinking they haven’t hit their balance yet, but he doesn’t say anything.
~~~
Her house gets termites. Her kids go to stay with their fathers, while it’s being tented, and she shows up at his door with a sleeping bag, of all things. He’s run low on groceries, so they end up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the living room floor and playing games.
Go Fish becomes War, War becomes Connect Four, and around midnight Truth or Dare gets suggested.
It goes as well as could be expected. He sticks to safe questions, the most interesting being her favorite color - she can’t decide. She doesn’t - asking bizarre things, everything she’s ever wanted to know, he thinks, and eventually he tells her she can just ask whatever she wants.
It takes her twenty minutes - and it doesn’t make him feel at all reassured that she’s a bit nervous - to ask why he spends time with her. It takes him five seconds to sit forward, grab her hands, meet her eyes, and say, simply, “I like you.”
Strangely, he feels absolutely calm, and capable of seeing this moment for exactly what it is. Just one moment, one more turning point, not the end all be all of anything. Not even one page in the story, just a paragraph.
And he thinks he sees her more clearly, too.
~~~
The clarity goes away the next day - he’s never going to be able to think - at all, forget clearly - when he wakes up with her, naked, in his bed.
But he’s okay with that.
And he’s going to do his best to keep her there, this time.
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