Chapter 3 High Hopes

"Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” Steinbeck

A week later he texted me. During that interval I had already talked myself down from ever speaking to or acknowledging him. Half for the sake of my friend and half because he wounded my pride by waiting a week. When I received the message I stared at it for five minutes before putting my phone back down on the counter and continuing to read my book. A text message, how tacky. Now the time which had passed for Him had not been the time it had been for Me. Everyday was a lifetime for someone trapped inside their head. For him a week was nothing, he hadn't even thought about that weird girl in the polka dot dress until he was finishing the seventh chapter of Dorian Grey. Lord Henry Wotton, arguably the funniest character Wilde ever incorporated into writing had gotten him thinking about the sarcastic little brunette ME. 

If anyone would be up for a little dramatic no strings attached romance, it would be her. Someone who wouldn’t ruin the suspense or the magic it brought about by trying to make it last. News around town was her and a longterm guy had just broken things off. He could be the romantic rebound, no expectations just some lovely bantering and intellectual conversation with a beautiful woman.  

Lets get coffee

I responded what seemed like years later and we decided that I was to help him take his parent’s dog “Leo” for a little walk that Sunday. It was actually very funny, his dog and I chasing each other around a street lamp, both of us people laughing until we were breathless. I showed him the music video of my favourite song at that moment: “High Hopes.” We argued over the semantics of it. At the end of the walk I looked at him and said 

“I bet you’ll want a kiss now”, and before he could respond with a full sentence, I bent down and kissed his dog squarely on the nose, laughing as I came up.  “I can’t do this, you know that.” pausing: “It’s just not going to happen , they’re are too many things at stake and…”

He cut me off: “You mean your best friend”

“I’m not at liberty to say, and even if that was it, no, she's the coolest person ever, she wouldn’t want me to not hang out with someone, she’s not selfish, not like that.”

“We’ll if its what you want.”

“What does anyone really want? No, its not what I want, but its whats happening.”

“Well then.” He hugged me, awkwardly and went off on his merry way. I received a text message later reading: 

I found my favourite F. Scott Fitzgerald quote: I am not sentimental, I am as romantic as you are. Someone sentimental thinks something will last. Romantics hope against hope that it won’t.

Then he sent me a video of him playing the opening chords to the song: High Hopes. 

It was the sweetest thing a boy had ever done for me, minus a tea incident with Oliver. But still, I hated him on principle. This was just the kind of thing someone like him would do to try and make someone like me interested in him. Oh, he was good. But he was so full of game, behind his other manifold attractions. When I thought about it like that it was easy for me to separate it into the black and white pieces that it really was composed of. I was just a shiny new toy and he was desperate for my attention.