Bridget Rebro was his undoing, she was his light at the end of the tunnel and he asked if the tunnel would cave in if he were to go towards it. Not knowing when he would get an answer, Blake was just uncomfortable laying in his bed by himself, he noticed a light wind storm accompanied by rain that night. He normally hated the sound of it. Wind thrashing itself its compatriot rain, against his window, but this day was different. The sound created as the rain was assaulting the metal tool shed, just outside beneath his window, was a calming influence on him this night. So he opened his window just a crack as to let the sound and the cool night air stream in but not allow much of the rain to infiltrate his room.
As he lay there he realized that he had another night of shifting to find comfort in his twin size bed, just long enough to support his 6 foot 2 frame, but not with comfort. He would get a bigger bed but it wouldn’t fit in his room clattered with his dirty and clean clothing strewn about on the ground, he no longer knew what was clean or dirty but he didn’t care about that because he knew he had two weeks off of school as a result of winter vacation to sort that out later. He looked up at his posters that were hanging off the wall above him, his rooms shape defined by the roof above him creating a wall with an acute angle to it, that he rest underneath.
As he lay in his bed, he started to nod off to the relaxing sound the storm outside had unexpectedly brought to him. Then his mind begrudgingly brought itself back to action as he clasped his cellphone in his hand to see if a message had finally arrived. Nothing, his phone had lit up seemingly without reason, as if to tease him. Now his mind was back in action, he didn’t know what to do but dissect and diagnose what he had done that day and the week prior. He did not think about the tests and quizzes he had that week to bring just enough stress into the senior’s schedule to distract him, if not the whole class, from the break that was coming up.
All he could think about that night, in fact all he could think about that week was her. That damning beauty of a girl, Bridget Rebro, who enslaved not only his mind but the minds of many guys at the school if not presently, then at some point in the past three years they felt this same mind numbing delight and misery of a crush.
She was a junior who knew just how beautiful and amazing she was, but part of what made her so attractive was her damning humility as she would constantly try and humble herself. She knew that she could wrap half the male population of the junior class around her finger if she wanted to but she didn’t, if only because many of the handsome, smart and overall great guys that would come as suitors would not be the one that she held special in her mind. No one knew who this guy was because she would act the same way to every guy, she would put on a smile that few could tell was fake, Blake could always see when the smile wasn’t genuine.
All he wanted to know was what was going to happen after the day’s events. He started to think about it as he rested his eyes on his bed.
“What now?” he said quietly to himself.
Going to school that morning Blake knew that it had to be the day that he asked Bridget to go out with him again. He didn’t know why he had this gut wrenching fear in him still as he knew that Bridget was aware of his feelings.
Before his senior year he didn’t know who she was, but going into the first class of the year that changed. When class started he looked across the table and saw for the first time the deep bright blue eyes of the woman that would later prove to be his kryptonite, Bridget.
As the year carried on it didn’t take long for Blake to accept the fact that he was indeed becoming attracted to her. Once he realized this, he knew he had to act in order to protect himself from the dreaded “friend zone.” This area of madness that many guys at his school have found themselves in was his home for the past three years, he wasn’t about to just let it happen to him a fourth. Well not without a fight.
He went about it, asked the question, and he got put off. Her answer was “let me think about it.” The next day she tried to put him down easy with, “I don’t feel I know you well enough, so not now.” And how he hated that response, not only was it a “no,” but it was a no that clearly left hope to him for a future.
The next few months were a blur, they developed a friendship, mostly a result of forced contact with each other, mainly the doing of Blake. They would start conversations in the morning between each other that other people would love to but in and join, begrudgingly Blake knew he had to share the conversation. Eventually Blake saw that he now has grown something to lose, he now has a relationship, a friendship, to lose with any advancement that he may take towards that something more.
He arrives at school, and plans on talking to Bridget in the morning. Every day he goes to school an hour early, if not to catch up on work or ask a teacher a question then to just hang out with friends. She used to get to school around the same time but as the year went on she would get to school a half hour before it started. Eventually he got into a rhythm and would find an excuse every time he could to leave the room around 8:30 to see if he could find her and walk with her to the classroom.
As the morning rolled by the room felt smaller and smaller, his friends felt distant and he could only think about the clock as it approached 8:30, he was searching for an excuse to stay in the room, he tried to get a conversation going with his friends but they didn’t bite they had a big BC Calc test that day so they brushed his attempts of conversation to the floor. As the time approached 8:30 he put himself to work on something in an attempt to make himself busy, distract himself from what he knew he needed to do. At 8:25 he started to pace a little bit attracting odd looks from his friends and a question from the teacher that he very quickly redirected so that he would be distracted and talking with his friends.
At 8:30 he took his leave, walked to the third floor commons and looked over a flock of underclassmen so care free, didn’t have to worry about tests, colleges, scholarships, and senior projects. How at this point he felt like he used to live a care free life, but not so much now. Another senior was waiting at the stairway, she was also waiting for someone, she looked at Blake and recognized that he was rather nervous for some reason but she didn’t know him well enough to really care about what was going on in his life. She left Blake shortly after, and all Blake wanted was for this whole ordeal to be over with. He waited for her but she didn’t show up before school started like she usually did. She showed up about ten minutes late for first period, turned out she had slept in. Now he had to plan for lunch.
Lunch arrived after what felt like an eternity but was only a few hours, and he went to find her but after looking around the small school for a little bit, she was nowhere to be found. He eventually remembered that during class that morning she had mentioned going out to Starbucks during lunch. Now he had to plan for after school.
Lunch ended and went on to sixth period, it was a quick period and school ended shortly, out in the hallway students poured out like a pack of unorganized and clumsy livestock that had just evaded a trip to the slaughterhouse.
After school ended he knew where to go almost instinctively, then he saw her. She was on her way up the stairs to the third floor to wait on her friends outside of the Spanish teacher’s room, somehow he seemed to keep his class in for a few minutes after school ended. She was on her way and Blake stopped at the top of the stairs and greeted her.
“Hey are you excited for the break?” he asked Bridget in a calm voice.
She looked up to the sky and pretended to think by holding her finger to her chin just under her lips as she approached him and said, “Yes” she responded with what he could recognize as a genuine smile.
She followed quickly with “after today I am ready to sleep in and not think about school for a little bit.”
“Ah, I can agree, three tests today, one in Calculus, one in a-push and one in Physics. How many did you have today?” he asked, already knowing the answer, two, because they shared their Calculus class and she also had physics.
“Only two” she responded. As they reached the door. She opened the door covered in Spanish writing without much thought expecting the class to have already left but was shocked to see the class still full the teacher finishing his last lecture of the day. The look on her face was the same as if she had just opened the door to two teachers going at it.
She shut the door very quickly, as anyone would have. And looked at Blake. He started to chuckle to himself.
“oops” She said.
“guess not yet” he said half laughing.
“Really? You don’t say?” she said a little sarcastic and frustrated. But she looked down then quickly glanced at Blake with a guilty grin on her face started to chuckle too.
The class must have ended very soon after that because the door then opened almost as soon as she had closed it. When they came out, it wasn’t as much a wave of students as a trickle as Peterson liked to shake hands with all the students as they left. Bridget got stuck holding the door, Blake took this opportunity and noticed that there was no one in the hall next to them
“hey, join me for a second over here ok?” He asked Bridget as he started to walk backwards towards the area assuming that she would.
“Ok” she said unhesitant and unquestioningly as she put here stuff down next to the door.
The response threw off Blake as he was expecting a question to follow but she just joined him on his walk to the flex area without further explanation.
He didn’t know how to start without being direct so he just went for it.
“You remember that time I sort a… umm… asked you out?” He said raising his eyebrows in hope that it wasn’t too direct to make her change her mind and turn around.
“Yea…” she said a bit confused at this point. “Not that many people forget that stuff” she continued.
At this point, Blake couldn’t change course, he came to the table with a simple plan, ask her to coffee, and he knew that despite its utter simplicity that he would screw it up one way or another.
“Well going from there, I was wondering if umm…” he stumbled a little, but found his ground as she started to raise her eyebrows already knowing what was to follow.
“Well, I was wondering If you would be interested in going out and getting some Starbucks with me sometime after break?” he asked and he quickly followed that question with “because I know you probably have plans with family during break and I wouldn’t want to bother you then.”
He knew immediately that he had just said to much in a time when less is more, but he couldn’t take it back, his nervousness doubled, and she could tell.
He waited for a second as she gathered her answer.
He couldn’t stand the silence and continued to speak.
“I know that we could go on from this point and become great friends but I know that as we grow closer all I am ever going to want is to be that something more for you.” Blake continued as she was gathering her answer.
As she had done before she put her finger to her chin and looked up to the ceiling, she had that same look on her face as she would if she was pretending to think, but Blake knew that she wasn’t pretending this time.
After what was only a short instance of silence Blake decided that it was best to continue.
“All I know is that I only think the best of you and all I want is to be able to spend more time with you.” At this point Blake realized that he should shut up, he had already talked too much. All he could do was look at her and wait to see what she had to say.
A silence that felt like an eternity then passed over him, he could see the other students in the hallway walking towards the stairway and out the door, he could see them moving and talking but it was as if there was no other sound in the world.
She took her finger off of her chin and looked at him with the bright blue eyes that were a source of enchantment and torment at the same time.
As he thought of what she said his phone went off in his hand. His mind was brought back to the present. He looked down at his hand and this time it wasn’t a false alarm there was actually a message to have entered his phone. He looked down at the phone in his hands, the look on his face was not of excitement but of nervous anticipation, all he knew was that “what now?” question was about to be answered.