The Day

Mick has wanted to meet his girlfriend face-to-face since they started dating, but a little something (please read: the right half of his body) is making him a bit nervous.

The Day

    Today is the day. The day I finally meet Emma, or Satcrosser82 as I knew her online, face to face. I pulled the left-hand corner of my lip into my mouth and knawd viciously, a bad habit I’ve developed over the years, and tried to remember just how I was conned into doing this.

Last Week

    “You’re coming to Boston?” Oh God why?

    “Yeah, we can finally see each other! Isn’t this great?!” I swallowed the lump in my throat and glanced in the bathroom mirror before responding.

    “Yeah!” I chuckled falsely. “Totally!” I gave my girlfriend, Emma, a laugh that sounded completely natural and totally not nervous in the least. There was a long pause on the other side of the phone.

    “What’s wrong.” She demanded. I’ll never know how she can turn such a sweet, thoughtful question into a threat, but she does. It’s just one of the many things I love about her.

    “Nothin’ Star! I swear…” Silence. I’m not getting anything else out of her until I give a better answer. Why do I love her? “It’s just…” Another glance in the mirror. “Is meeting really that important?”

    I think I died about seven or so times in the time it took her to answer.

    “Is it that important.” Emma repeated. “Is it that important? I don’t know Admiral, is flanking the tanker on both sides and throwing the Di ‘Nades at it in unison ‘that important?’” My face flushed as she recited the standard battle plan for taking down a 1240 Mory Tank, something so basic and well known that even a Civie would have the plan engraved on their heart because of how much it came up. It also proved her point very well. I winced.

    “Hell, I don’t know Star! It just seems a little …” I squeezed my eyes shut and grasped at a straw. “Superficial?”

    Wrong straw.

    “How could meeting your online girlfriend of four months be superficial?” Ems insisted. “What, are you superficial?” My eyes double their diameter.

    “No!” I cried. I paused for a moment to see if my parents had heard my shout before remembering that Mom was out and Dad was deaf. I started to whisper anyway. “God no.”

    “Then why don’t you try a new reason you don’t want to see me, Mick.” I winced again at her tone, she was really getting upset now. Maybe I should just tell her the truth.

    “Stranger danger?”

    Or dig a deeper grave, that works too.

    The silence lasted longer than I wanted it to.

   

    …

    …

    …

    “Hello … ?” I pulled the phone away from my ear to check and see if the call screen was still up. It was.

“Ems?”

“I’m hanging up” Cue the tripling of the eye diameter.

“What? No!” I cried, but it was too late. The call had ended.

I groaned and slammed my hand into my forehead, letting the phone drop to the ground. How could I be so stupid! Why didn’t I just tell her! I looked in the mirror to remind myself and cringed. But she wouldn’t care about that, would she? Dad doesn’t, neither does Mom … Oh, who am I kidding, of course she does! They don’t care ‘cause they’re parents! They have to love me! Star doesn’t though …

I slid to the tiled floor of my bathroom and stared hopelessly at my phone lying less than a foot away. I’m really gonna regret not doing anything about this in the future. After a bit more mental debate, I squeezed my eyes shut, groaned, and picked up the phone. I re-opened my eyes and stared at the lock screen. It was a drawing Emma made of my character in The New Ways game online, Admiral_Kingston, it was incredible, the best drawing I think I’ve ever seen. Seeing it reminded me of why I’d broken my parents’ strict rule of “no sharing personal info online.” I thought about how funny Emma was, I thought about how fearless she was, I thought about the time she charged into an army of Green Lookers with only twelve percent health and a single health pack that she insisted I use because that was the reason she ran out there in the first place. I thought about just how utterly amazing Emma was and realized that there was no way an angel like that could do a sudden one-eighty and hate me because I’m not aesthetically pleasing. I unlocked the phone and quickly hit her speed dial, trying to outrun my nerves. I put it to my ear and listened with clenched eyes as it ringed, waiting to hear a voice I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.

    Ring, ring.

    Ring, ring.

    Ring, ring.

    “Mick? Why are you calling? I thought you didn’t want to talk to a stranger.” I winced at her tone and tried to gather the nerve to tell her.

    “I-” I choked up. Oh come on, you can’t start crying too! I thought life wasn’t allowed to be this mortifying.

    “Mick?” Emma’s voice went from pissed to worried at break-neck speeds. “Mick, hey Admiral what’s going on?” Her tone was urgent. I took another deep breath.

    “I’m sorry.”  I managed to whisper. “I didn’t mean to-” I lost my voice again.

    “What? Mick I- Look I’m sorry too, but please skip to the part where you explain why you are currently crying!” I tried for a laugh, that last time I heard Ems this panicked I had just locked her in a room full of Rampant Swills.

    “Sorry, sorry” I managed to choke. The humor of the thought calming me a bit. “I just-I have scars Em. I-I-I don’t want you to see them…” Emma sighed.

    “God d****t I’m so sorry Mick. I wouldn’t have pushed you and gotten mad and s**t if I’d --” She sighed angrily. “Whatever. Look, I don’t care if you’ve got scars and s**t, you don’t have to show me.” I screwed my eyes tighter together. I felt a tear go down my burnt flesh.

    “They’re not subtle Emmy.” I croaked. I could picture Emma shaking her head at me.

    “I don’t care Micky. I just want to meet you. And if I do ditch you for it then you deserve someone way better than me.”

Present Time

    We had made the plans to meet up pretty quickly after that and I had been confident in those plans, I’m pretty well known for my strategies, but now that I’m sitting here in Boston Public Garden, I kinda just want to hang myself from the Washington Statue over there. I pulled the black hood of my jacket lower over my face and went back to trying to pick my nails through the thick maroon gloves. I’m pretty sure my lip is bleeding.

    “Hey kid!” I jumped at the sudden voice to my left. “What are you up to? You’re lookin’ pretty suspicious over --” I turned to look at the man fully. “ --Holy S**t!” I winced and tried to pull the hood lower. The officer’s face flushed with embarrassment.

    “Oh s**t. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to--” I cut him off.

    “It’s fine, I get it. Guy’s gotta do his job, right?” I tried to go for a friendly chuckle but it came out more awkward than I had hoped it would.

    “Still kid I’m real sorry. I gotta say you look really suspicious just sittin’ there with you're face covered and what not. Mind if I check what you’re up to?” I managed to cringe out a kind smile.

    “Of course not, Sir! I’m just waiting for a friend of mine to show up.” The officer nodded.

    “Kay kid, have fun.” He sent me and equally painful smile and walked away, politely asking God if he could damn somebody named Baxter as he went. I let out a large sigh and slumped into the bench. Trying once more to see if I could get my hood to go past my nose. No luck. God, I hate going out in public. I sat there for another forty-five minutes or so before someone else decided they’d like to talk too.

    “Uh, hey…” A familiar voice began nervously. “Are you Mick?” I stood up and turned towards the voice eagerly, completely over the moon that Emma really showed, but my mood quickly declined when I saw the look of horror she had on her face.

    I won’t lie, when I pictured Emma I imagined a tall, blonde, skinny girl with a nice rack. That is not what I got. Not like that’s a bad thing or whatever! I’m just saying that I need to work on my guessing skills because the only thing I got right was her hair color, and she told me that. I was wrong about everything else, though. She wasn’t skinny, but she definitely wasn’t fat either, maybe a little pudgy, but never fat, I didn’t bother to check her breast size, seeing as that’s an insanely rude thing to do on a first encounter, though now that she’s really in front of me I couldn’t see how it mattered, and she was wearing a simple white long sleeve shirt, blue jeans, and pair of white floral glasses over a pair of stunning blue eyes.

    And I’m pretty sure she looks better than I ever could have imagined.

    I could only assume how disappointed she was, seeing a scrawny kid, half burned and equipped with a blind right eye standing up to greet her.

    I swallowed hard and hung my head, sitting back down on the bench sadly.

    “Uh … Yeah, that’s me.” She didn’t move.

    I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t prepared for this. “Look if you want to call this off that’s totally fine.”

    “No!” She hurriedly responded. “No, sorry, I’m just.” She walked over and sat down to my right. “I guess I’m just a little surprised it all.” She laughed nervously. I shifted uncomfortably.

    “Could you sit over here actually?” I asked, patting the seat to my left. “I can’t really see you ever there.” I finished, motioning to my milky eye. Emma spluttered an apology and scurried over to my left.

    “Sorry.” I apologized. “It’s just a lot easier like this.”

    “Oh no, that’s totally fine I get it …” She trailed off and we sat there in silence, listening to the birds. I was just waiting for the fake phone call to excuse herself.

    “So … What’s the plan, Admiral?” I jumped and looked at her suddenly.

    “Huh? You actually wanna stay!” She cocked an eyebrow and smirked. God, I’ve been wanting to see that smirk in action since the beginning.

    “I did not just take a five-hour flight from Utah to skip out on a free lunch, Admiral. Besides,” She bumped my shoulder. “It’s not really that bad.” I gawked at her for a moment and couldn’t stop the smile that poured onto my face like syrup soon after if I tried.

    “Yeah, yeah okay!” I hopped off the bench and offered her a gloved hand. “C’mon Star! I’ve got whole lot to show you, and it starts with that free lunch you were promised!” Emma laughed and took my hand. I tugged her along the path and we ran about a quarter of the way to Sal’s Pizza, with my bad leg and her lack of cardio abilities we were both a bit more proud than we should have been about it.

I loved Sal’s Pizza and from the half-hour Ems and I spent talking the beauty of pizza, I think she’ll love it too. We finally walked in and I almost passed out at the smell, it was heavenly. I dragged a tired, but laughing, Starcrosser over to a booth and nearly pushed her in. She laughed a little bit louder.

    “My God, Admiral! You’re way too excited about this place.” My face flushed.

    “Sorry, but this place is really good and you’ll love it, I’m sure!” Emma laughed more, it’s so nice hearing her laugh without the static, and a loud voice caught my attention.

    “Hey, Mick-E,” The voice boomed. “What did I say about the hood!” I shrunk in on myself as I pulled my hood down cautiously and the man roared with laughter. He finally came into view and slapped me harshly on the shoulder, big guy hardly paid attention to his own strength.

    Sal, the owner of the restaurant (Shocking right?), was a large man with a large stomach and a large smile who loves to tease me and make me squirm. He’s known my dad since before the adoption so he’s like my grandfather. The big guy was always smiling but could make a wrestler wet himself when he raised his voice. A trait that was his loving wife, Paula, had amplified tenfold in her own terrifying way. I love these people. I was suddenly pulled from my thoughts by the most horrifying sentence that has ever been uttered.

    “Oh, so this is your little girlfriend, eh?” Sal reached over and ruffled Emma’s hair. “She’s just as pretty as you said she was.”

    My eyes decided they were jealous of how big quarters were and figured they’d imitate the size. Emma sneered at me from across the table.

    “Really Admiral? Speaking sweet about a subordinate.” She made smug little tutting sounds and I groaned. She started to laugh and Sal looked back and forth between us, trying to keep up with our odd conversation.

Ugh Outers.

    “Alright then!” The large man cheered. “You want that pizza now or would you rather you started with the garlic bread?” I sighed and threw my head onto the table.

    “What’s it matter, I’ve already died of humiliation.” I raised my head and looked pathetically at Emma. “What do you want?”

    Emma tisked. “Aww, poor baby.” She cooed. Her smile returned and she looked over at Sal. “Can we start with the bread?” Sal’s eyes guided themselves to the ceiling and he rolled his thick neck back in exaggeration.

    “Can she start with the bread?” He asked God. “Can she start. With the bread.” He let out a faux sigh of exasperation and looked back down at Ems. “I guess so, but don’t go telling people! I have a reputation to uphold around here.” Emma laughed at his joke as he walked away. She looked back at me.

    “Oh my God! Why was that man not in every single story you told me!” She demanded. I bit my lip and blushed more.

    “I half-hoped that you two would never meet. I was actually banking on his wife, Paula, being here today instead. Though she might have brought out baby pictures no one knew she had.” Emma snorted then immediately turned red. She bit her lip self-consciously as Sal came back and put two glasses of water on our table. I gave her a suspicious look.

    “You know you’re not allowed to be embarrassed by your laugh, right?” Her face went from a light rouge to scarlet.

    “Shut up.” She grumbled into her glass, taking a small drink. “I hate my snort.” I smiled.

    “Well, I think it’s darling.” I hummed. I tried out my new and improved “Flirty Grin.” Emma looked up from her glass and then proceeded to shoot water out of her nose. She put her head down on the table as she tried to suppress the laughter.

    “Did you just wiggle your eyebrows at me!” She crowed. We exchanged face color. I always wanted to see what it’d be like if I looked like a tomato. A half-rotten tomato, but a tomato none the less.

    “Okay, now it’s your turn to shut up.” I humphed out. Her laughter knew no end. She started to choke and hiccup with the intensity. I looked over towards the kitchen where the new kid, a high schooler named Brad, was watching with an amused twinkle in his eye. He noticed me noticing him and decided he’d like to notice his dish washing job next. Not before giving me a smug wink, though, of course not. I leaned back in my seat and waited for Emma to calm down. This is either the best day of my life, or the second worst.

    The “date” only got better from there. The only bump we managed to catch was when I, being the smooth casanova I am, knocked my water off the table and then proceeded to shriek like a small school girl in surprise. After awhile though we started to run out of things to talk about and slipped into a comfortable silence. I was so enraptured by my beautiful pepperoni pizza that I didn’t notice Ems was staring at me until I was going to grab another slice. Her eyes were locked on the dead half of my face. I looked back at her, though she didn’t seem to notice. I sighed inwardly and decided to answer the question she didn’t want to ask.

    “It was an explosion.” I informed. Emma jumped.

    “Hmm? Oh right, sorry, no you don’t have to-” I laughed a bit.

    “Nah Star, it’s fine.” And I was a little surprised that I wasn’t lying. I really had no problem telling Emma how I’d come to have my entire right side burnt to a crisp. I’ve had more than enough time to come to terms with what happened and my life ended up being pretty great. You know, save the whole “charred right side” part of it.

    “I was really young when it happened, only about four. My parents were throwing a Christmas party, everyone was there.” I smiled a little bit as small, foggy memories came to mind. I remembered all the bright Christmas lights I’d helped my mom and dad hang around the house. I thought about the large tree that looked like it was grown in a nest of brightly wrapped boxes. “There was one guy, though, he might have been my uncle or cousin or something, and he was nowhere near being mentally sound. He wanted all of his family to go to heaven so we could be happy forever. A really nice thought but--” I swallowed hard. “He set off a bomb in the living room. I’d been really close to him when he did it, but for some weird reason, I was the only one that made it. I remember the news,” A small bitter chuckle. “The news said there had been ‘point five survivors’ because half my face was pretty much burned off. I also, clearly, lost sight in my right eye. I sort of wish it’d been my left, though, sort of a hit-your-face-break-your-arm kind of thing.” I shrugged and looked back up at Emma, though I couldn’t remember looking down. “It really sounds a lot worse than it ended up being …” Emma opened and closed her mouth. She didn’t know what to say. Then she frowned and took a grumpy bite of pizza.

    “Great, thanks for that.” She mutter bitterly. “Now I can’t say ‘I’m having the worst day in the history of ever’ anymore.’ She glared at me playfully. “I hope you’re happy Mr. Tear-Jerking-Backstory. Seriously how could anyone compete!” She snapped up another bite of pizza. “You have the world’s best-worst backstory ever!” I blinked at her. I had expected a little more ‘You poor thing’ and a lot less ‘Nice going a-hole.’ Emma ignored my surprised look and continued to eat her pizza. Muttering about “stupid heroes” and their “stupid tear-jerky-ness.” Finally, I began to laugh. Leave it to Star to take a deep, emotionally charged moment and turn it into something funny. She peered at me over the top of her glasses and smiled happily around her current bite of pizza.

    Not much happened after that, though. Nothing note-worthy anyway. Ems and I finished our food and went back to the park. I rented us a swan boat and Emma proceeded to let me propel the stupid thing all by myself and shout “Come on, come on! You can do it Admiral! If you can lead Team Warshire to glory you can pedal a swan! Go! Go! Go! Go!” and I may or may not have given Ems a little push into the water. After that, we took a picture together so she could prove that she did have a boyfriend in Boston to her friends at school. I was a little nervous about that, but she ended up convincing me it’d be fine (“If I’m as pretty as you say I am then people won’t even notice you!”). Then we just kinda walked around until it was time to go. All in all that was the best day of my life, well it was. But then Emma went a changed her last name and I got a new favorite day.

Author's Note

So I made a new story ... Why can I not make a character without some really sad backstory? What is wrong with me? Anyway remember that anything you say helps and I hope you've enjoyed the story at least a little bit!!!

Reviews

[Corey12345]

I really enjoyed reading this story, i feel so bad for the guy but i love the ending and how they end up together.

[Alice Poppy]

Thanks Man, I tried making him as pitiful yet normal as possible!