Chapter 3[]
In the hallway on the way to L.A. (they had the same schedule, except for 8th period, block classes.), Elise told Selena about Ray and her going for coffee. “DUDE! Are you talking about Raymond Venthouser? ‘Cause that dude it TOTALLY HOT!”
“Well, yeah…”
“OMG! You guys have to totally get together!”
“Whatever. Hurry, that’s the bell.”
The day went by slower than Elise thought possible. She hated it. Seriously. In P.E., Elise ran faster, hoping to make time go faster. She never ran fast. AT ALL. EVER. The closest she got to running was speed walking. The teacher didn’t even care. She just sat in her office all day, looking out of the window occasionally, after she told them what to do. She usually was too lazy, so she just wrote what they were going to do for the day on the marker board.
The day was finally over. Elise was walking to the coffee shop. Once she got there, she saw Ray, leaning on a support beam for the building. She went up to him and said “Hi…”
“Oh. Hi. Stop sneaking up on me like that!” Ray said, surprised to see her.
“Sooooo…” Elise stretched out the ooooo to fill the empty gap of silence.
They walked up to the counter and Ray said “Large cup of black coffee, please.”
“Decaf?” the cashier said.
“Nope.”
Elise ordered a “Medium mocha with...ummm...chocolate sauce, extra marshmellows, and make that a large, please.” Elise was really jittery.
“Decaf?” the cashier repeated.
“Yes, please.” Elise didn’t want to get any more worked up than she already was. (Yes, she had a lot of sugar from the chocolate sauce and marsh mellows, but the sugar didn’t have much effect on her.) Weird. she thought. I always go hyper when I have sugar.
As they sipped their ‘hot stuff’, as Ray called it, they talked about all of the usual stuff like school, homework, teachers (especially Mrs. Gym Teacher), and then it got awkward. Ray asked Elise “Do you have a boyfriend?”
Ummm, no, but I would be happy to have one. You. That’s what she wanted to say. She said “Well, that’s an awkward question…but no, I don’t.”
“I’m surprised. Someone like you looks like you would have one.”
“Someone like me? What do you mean by that? You’re the one who looks like he should have one. I mean, a girlfriend, not a boyfriend.”
Awkward… Elise thought.
Nobody talked for a while. They stared at random things like their coffee or wrote a text to the other saying ‘I love you.’ But they quickly erased it to make sure the other one didn’t see. After about 10 minutes of this, Elise accidentally pressed the SEND button. “Oh, crap!”
“What?” Ray answered, his voice curious.
“I, uh, sent a text to you that wasn’t meant for you. Here give me your phone.”
She tried to grab Ray’s iPhone (an iPhone, of course) but failed. The familiar beep of a text went off. “NOOOOOOO!” Elise shouted. Everybody in the shop just stared. “...I mean, the text said ‘noooooo!’. Yeah, and it um, just, yeah. You can erase it now.” Elise said, trying not to yammer on.
“No way am I erasing something that you’ve been making this big a deal out of.” He checked his text. Again, he stared. She stared, trying to think of what to say.
“I’m sorry. I better just go now.” Embarrassed, Elise made a beeline for the exit, but Ray was faster than her.
“Do you mean that?”
Elise stopped. More staring. “I don’t,” Sniffle “know…” Trying to fight back tears, Elise walked out of the store, ‘so embarrassed that I could die’. and that was that.