What Did I Get In To

Robin goes to the funeral and develops a crush on Tony.

The next week was pure f*****g chaos. Daniel and I were questioned over and over �" cops were in and out of Butterfly and they even questioned Tony, who had never even met Caleb. So after a lot of “I don't know what happened,” I was finally cleared as a suspect along with Daniel and Tony. And of course, after the autopsy, there was a funeral.

After a long hour of staring at the ceiling in my room with the fan drying out my eyes, I got up and dressed in my only funeral-appropriate clothing. Luckily my pants were long enough to cover my sneakers; I never did care for dress shoes even if I could afford them. My cellphone beeped.

“How u holding up?” - Tony. I gazed at the message for a moment.

“Okay. U going to the funeral?”

“I can go to support u 2.” So, Tony planned to be the shoulder for Daniel and maybe for me, too.

Funerals make me so uncomfortable �" not because of the death so much, but because I know that no one would show up to mine if I were the one in the casket. My family hasn't had anything to do with me in a year or so �" not after they found my online profile and saw I'm not only gay but on Prozac. Too many years of pretending to be normal can drag you down.

The funeral didn't last long and not many people were there �" I sat with Daniel and Tony and Daniel sobbed profusely. I tried not to cry but I couldn't help the tears from falling when I saw Caleb's parents. As much as I liked Tony as a co-worker, I couldn't shake the shock from the ending of Caleb. He had been strangled with a rope and dumped in the river. Who's to say there aren't more to soon be found? Caleb didn't have enemies; he didn't even have friends �" the whole thing seemed like a random act. Wrong place and wrong time for Caleb. Tony rested his hand on my arm for a moment and quickly moved it back to his leg. My heart jumped into my throat for a few moments.

After the funeral, Tony hopped onto his bike and looked back at me.

“I'm going for coffee, want to come? That preacher made me so damn sleepy.” I looked at him and ran my fingers through my own hair, thinking. Of course I wanted to go, but I was nervous as hell.

“Alright. I'll meet you there?”

“No just get on my bike, we can go together.” I slowly approached Tony's bike, trying to figure out how this would work. “Stand on the pegs and hold on,” he explained.

I held onto Tony's bony shoulders as we rode to the coffee shop a few blocks from the Butterfly center. He rides like a maniac. I almost flew off the bike several times and when he made the final stop at Ally's Coffee Shop I nearly flew over him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and sighed.

“Holy s**t, man,” I said. “Reckless much?”

“Often.”

Tony spent a lot of time adding sugar to his tea and dipping a bagel into the cup. I was lost in thought, lost in conversation. Tony had so much empathy I wondered how he managed to communicate with anyone at all without imploding. I drank my coffee very slowly.

“It must be so hard on the two of you,” he said. “You and Daniel. Daniel seems real torn up about this, and then having a replacement so soon...” he looked up at me and gazed. His eyes were so intense and so green I had to look away. God, I need a Xanax.

“Well, Daniel was really close to him; as close as you could get to Caleb, anyway. I kind of was always annoyed by his compulsive tidiness. You're fine though, and you do wonders on the lines...” I said. It was true, Tony had a way with the callers. He was much better than me, but after three years at Butterfly, I was just jaded. Every call sounded the same. Every crying voice, every drunk rambling, every financial woe. Tony felt for every single one of them.

“So how's the investigation going? Do you know?”

“Well,” I looked at the table between us to avoid his intense gaze, “since we're all cleared as suspects, no one gives a f**k about telling me or Daniel about the leads. My thoughts...well, my thoughts are that it was random convenience to kill or else Caleb was hiding something huge.” Tony stirred his tea with his green straw and dipped a bagel into it. Gross.

“Well, whatever it was seems real premeditated. The rope? The river? That's not stuf off the top of your head. That's a plan.” I thought for a moment and looked up at the door of the very brown coffee house to see Candice walk in, wearing a short pink dress and beige heels, purse resting over her body. Her platinum hair was in a bun.

“Hi, y'all!” she chirped before going to the counter to get what she always did �" green tea with soymilk. Candice is the only person who I tell my secrets to �" she knows I'm gay, she knows about my suicide attempts, and as of late, she knows I think Tony is cute. But Candice never tells. She stays to herself, a lone wolf of the female category, intent on psychological studies, art, and looking much younger than she really is at age twenty-one. She always listens and never judges.

“You known Candice long?” asked Tony.

“Since highschool, really,” I said. “She didn't socialize much but she understood me more than most.”

“What led her to Butterfly?”

“Well, Candice has Aspergers Syndrome and death is her obsession. She can help people through that obsession so she does by working at the hotline.” I watched as Candice moved to a table my herself and opened a textbook �" something she'd often read for fun.

“Oh I see. She seems nice. Lonely, but nice.”

Tony dropped me off at my apartment and waved.

“I'll see you tonight,” he said softly. Something in his voice made me weak. I cannot develop a crush on a maybe-gay co-worker! I thought. I ran inside of my lat and called the only person I could; Candice.

“Candice!” I said on the phone as soon as she picked up.

“Well, hello there.”

“I need your help,” I whispered.

“Yes. And with what?”

“The new guy.”

“Oh boy, he's cute. Like him?”

“I think I might. I can't like a co-worker, I can't. I'm not even positive he's gay.”

“He's not straight....” Candice trailed off. “Kiss him?”

“You don't just kiss people, Candice!” Candice and her logic sometimes would wear on me, but I loved her and her advice. Her advice is the pure form of objective reasoning no matter how anyone sees it. But my heart is what controls me, not her big brain of objectivity.

“Ask him to a place...somewhere to eat, but somewhere kind o fancy?” she suggested quietly. I had damaged her confidence. God, I forget the Aspergers....”

“Not a bad idea...” I thought quietly.

I decided to ask Tony to go with me to a nice place since I had extra money; I made it clear that I needed out since the murder and that I figured he'd be the best person to go with. He accepted. I was giddy about the meet-up, even though I saw him almost every night. I spent too much time in the mirror, fixing hair and being sure I was in a lack of pimples. I hoped my beer gut didn't show too much because I really hoped Tony was looking... What did I get into?

Author's Note

screw typos