The Mike Fiasco

This chapter discusses how I made J.C. jealous...with the help of some friends.

Four days later--on November 15--several of my friends from 'The Pacer' (Mike, Karen, Phil, and Vicente) took me out to lunch at Applebee's as a belated celebration of my birthday. We were sitting at a table near the entrance to the restaurant (I was facing the door), just laughing and talking and having a good time as we dined on our selected dishes.

 

The door suddenly opened, and a man that I had never met but had seen in Facebook pictures walked into the restaurant. He was followed by a woman who I had also seen on Facebook, but never in person. When the remainder of their party stepped into the restaurant, their identities finally clicked. That man and that woman were Fuller's parents...and the remainder of their party was composed of none other than Fuller and J.C.

 

Naturally, I began freaking out. A scenario of this sort had never seemed like even a remote possibility to me...especially at Applebee's, a restaurant that Fuller tended to avoided due to the fact that he had several ex-girlfriends employed there as waitresses (although he, J.C., and I had been there together one time before).

 

My friends were quite amused when I explained the reason for my freak-out...and even more amused when J.C. and the others were seated at a table right on the other side of the frosted glass window that separated two areas of the restaurant (in addition to the door, I just happened to be facing that window as well). As far as I could tell, J.C. and Fuller hadn't recognized me at that point, and I was actually completely fine with that; I wanted to avoid having things get all awkward and such. My friends, however, had other plans.

 

Karen, Phil, and Vicente started encouraging Mike (who was sitting next to me) to start flirting with me, and he agreed to play along. Phil loudly declared, "Hey, Mike, why don't you hold Sarah's hand?" and Mike responded with an equally-loud declaration of, "Hey, Sarah, why don't I hold your hand?" the others kept egging things on, providing additional loud instructions such as, "Give her a hug!" and things of that sort.

 

By the time we had paid our bill, the four of them had cooked up a plan to really grab J.C.'s attention; a plan that I went along with in hopes that it might make him jealous (because let's face it, just about every girl wants to do that at least once in the aftermath of a break-up). Mike and I, rather than following everyone else's lead and walking the two feet or so that stood between our table and the exit, were supposed to walk through the doorway at the back of the room that we were in...which would lead us into the next room and right past the table at which J.C. was sitting. It actually could have been an honest mistake; our cars were parked on that side of the restaurant, and had there actually been an exit located there, it would have made perfect sense for us to be using it.

 

Everyone cleared the table, and the plan was thrown into action. Before I had a chance to change my mind, Mike slung his arm around my shoulders and started walking. Upon reaching the doorway, he practically shouted, "Oh...there's not a door here!" and continued marching toward J.C.'s table. I could feel my face flaming as I walked with my arm around his waist, hissing about how much I hated him through giggles of nervousness and embarrassment as we passed J.C.'s table.

 

I didn't actually look at any of their faces, but I did notice that they grew quiet when we walked by. Upon exiting the restaurant, my friends laughingly informed me that all of them had regarded Mike and me with shocked faces (even Fuller's parents, who, as far as I knew, didn't even know who I was). According to them, J.C. had even turned around in his seat and watched us until we rounded the corner.

 

Upon arriving back at school, we all got to work on the soon-to-be-released issue of 'The Pacer.' About an hour later, I received a text message. I'll give you three guesses as to who that text message was from. Yup. J.C.

 

I accessed the message and read, "Have a good lunch?" Upon reading the message for themselves, my friends immediately cracked up and triumphantly declared that they had told me that their plan would wind up being a success. They lingered around me to witness my response to J.C.'s question, which wound up being something along the lines of, "Yeah, how was yours?"

 

"Good 'till I seen that." This message sent my friends into even further hysterics, and they encouraged me to "play dumb" and ask him what he was talking about. I did, and they burst out laughing once again when he provided his answer. "You and your new guy all over each other."

 

Despite my friends pleading with me to lie and say that Mike was, indeed, my new beau, I didn't have the heart to do so. True, I had wanted to make J.C. jealous, but I most certainly did not want to ruin my chances of ever getting him back. And so, to the disappointment of my friends, I informed J.C. that Mike was only a friend.

 

The reply that I received from him spoke of how "all lovey dovey" I had been with Mike at the restaurant and referenced a Facebook post that I had posted earlier in the day about "being in class with that guy." The status in question, as I explained to J.C., had actually had nothing to do with Mike and had not been a positive comment. I had been in zoology class at the time, and there just happened to be a guy who sat near me that bore a striking resemblance to J.C. As you can probably imagine, having to sit in such close proximity to someone who looked exactly like the love of my life that I no longer had the privilege of dating was not a very pleasant thing as far as I was concerned; my exact words on the status were, "What's worse than zoology class? Zoology class with that guy."

 

After finally managing to convince J.C. that there was nothing going on between Mike and me, I transitioned into trying yet again to get him to take me back. I did not succeed in doing so, but I did succeed in getting him to confirm that he still loved me...and that, coupled with the way that he had reacted to the whole Mike fiasco, was good enough for me.