30 Guys in 30 Days (19 page)

I blushed. “How can you tell?”

“Claudia, you haven’t said one word since we met at the coffeehouse. For you, that’s totally out of character.”

“Not true,” I protested.

“When have you
ever
gone more than five minutes without speaking?” he teased.

I glared at him, but couldn’t really argue. He was right.

“So, spill it,” he prompted. “It can’t be that bad.”

“No, not that bad,” I began carefully. “But yeah, there’s something.”

I tilted my body so that I was facing him more directly. “I really, really like you, Sean.”

“But …”

“But … when I first came to college I made it a point to break up with my long-term boyfriend so that I could stand on my own two feet for a while. Of course, when I got here, and the classes were hard, and the boys were predatory, and the beer was cheap … well, suddenly that seemed a lot scarier to me than I had anticipated. And I thought I had lost my touch with guys.”

“You? No way.”

“Way.
Seriously.
Way. So I practiced going
up to guys and talking, and sometimes it backfired really badly and sometimes it didn’t, but for the most part it was what it was. And then, finally, I met you. And it just felt so comfortable, right from the start, and such a relief from trying so hard all the time.”

“Okay, Claud, so where’s the part where this is a bad thing?”

I smiled sadly. “I guess there isn’t one, really. I mean, it’s not bad that I met you—it’s amazing. But I’m afraid that I’m allowing myself to fall into another situation because it feels comfortable.”

“And that’s not what you want right now,” he finished for me.

I shook my head. “No, it’s not.”

He sighed deeply. “Well, this isn’t what I want, Claud, but I do think it takes guts to choose to be on your own rather than fall back on a relationship.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I wish you weren’t making this so easy for me. It almost makes this all harder.”

“Would you rather I tossed my coffee in your face and stormed off?” he said, picking up his cup and pantomiming.

I pretended to consider this for a moment. “It’s an idea … ,” I said. “But no thanks.”

He laughed and leaned over to hug me. “I’m not going to sit around waiting for you, obviously,” he said. “And, you know, I’m going abroad next semester, anyway, so maybe this is good timing. But if you change your mind or want to just talk, you know where to find me.”

“I will,” I promised him.

He stood up, zipped his jacket up more tightly and, with a wave, he was gone.

Miraculously, Charlie had a few hours off from pledging hell, and we’d arranged to meet for dinner at Luigi’s for pizza. I arrived at seven and settled into a booth. Charlie showed up ten minutes later, looking frazzled. Frazzled was not a look I was accustomed to seeing on Charlie, and it took me a moment to adjust to the wisps of hair escaping from her ponytail in every direction, her untucked shirt, and her shiny T-zone.

“Ugh, I
swear
I am going to kill that girl in her sleep,” Charlie groaned, sliding into the seat across from me.

“Anu?” I guessed.

“Yu-huh. Today she wanted me to write a haiku in tribute to one of the Sigma-Nu boys. Then I had to read it as I performed an interpretive dance. All this in front of the Inter-Greek Council at their weekly meeting.”

“No!” I gasped. Even for Anu, even for sorority pranks, that sounded bad. A thought occurred to me. “Wait a minute,” I said suspiciously. “Which guy?”

“Zach Masters, of course.”

“Oh, is she still giving you trouble about him? Doesn’t she realize that
I
was the one who was hitting on him?”

“Actually, Claudia,
he
was the one who was hitting on
you.”

“Whatever. Charlie, I think you need to stand up to Anu.”

Charlie leaned forward across the table. “Yeah, that’s a fabulous idea. Because I never actually
wanted
to be initiated, anyway.”

“I’m serious, Charlie. This chick has absolutely no reason to be carrying a vendetta against you, and I think, objectively speaking, that it’s pretty obvious she
is treating you unfairly in comparison with the other pledges. You need to deal with this. Until you stand up for yourself, she’s not going to respect you.”

Charlie eyed me for a moment, contemplating.

“You were nervous,” I prodded. “The whole Greek scene was new, and it was something you really wanted to be a part of. You didn’t want to blow it. But its
not
like you, and you can’t go on like this. Besides, Miss Georgia Peach—didn’t you take first in the interview sections of all of your many pageants? If
anyone
can broach a difficult topic diplomatically, it’s you.”

“You’re right!” she said, banging her fist on the table. A few nearby patrons turned to stare. “You’re right,” she said more quietly, patting the table softly. “I’ll call her tonight and ask if we can find a time to sit down and talk. And if she refuses …”

“She won’t refuse,” I said with certainty. “Not if you phrase it in just the right way.”

She nodded. “You’re right. Have I mentioned that you’re right? When did you get so smart?” She leaned across the table and
eyed me. “When did you get so
depressed?
What’s wrong? Is something wrong? And here I’ve been blabbing on all about my boring problems.”

“No! Well, yes, but I mean, I wanted to hear about your day. I’m glad you’re going to talk to Anu. I think it’s the only solution.”

“Yes, but now we’re talking about Claudia,” she insisted.

“Well, on the subject of being true to oneself …I broke up with Sean today,” I confessed.

She made a face. “At least you’ve got it done with?” she asked uncertainly. “It must be slightly better than having the whole thing hanging over your head?” She sighed heavily. “I just feel like the least perceptive friend in the whole world. Here I thought you guys were so happy.”

“We
were
happy,” I said. “But, unfortunately, it was more the ‘hangin’ with your best bud’ kind of happy.”

“As opposed to the ‘rip my clothes off and have your way with me now’ kind of happy?” Charlie countered.

“Exactly. And I know that, in a relationship,
the stable friendship is as important as the heaving passion, but isn’t it okay to want a little bit of both?”

“More than okay,” Charlie asserted.

“Anyway, I felt like I was just replicating my relationship with Gabe all over again, and that’s the last thing I wanted.”

Charlie blinked, but didn’t say anything. I was surprised; I’d been expecting something along the lines of a “you go, girl!” or the like. Not the fish-eye she was leveling at me with unnerving intensity.

“Now’s the part in the conversation where it’s your turn to talk, Charlie,” I said, prompting her.

“Claudia, did you hear yourself?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “I was replicating my relationship with—” I stopped, color flooding my cheeks. “Yikes.”

“Can you tell him how you feel?” she asked. “In the interest of being true to yourself?”

I shook my head vehemently. “Charlie, he has a girlfriend. I’m not a home-wrecken Or, dorm-wrecker.”

“I understand,” she said. “I don’t like it,
but I understand. I’ll talk to Anu tonight. Ill be true enough for the both of us.”

I sighed. “It’s a deal.”

After dinner I headed toward the
Chronicle
office. I wanted to pick up some press releases that I knew were waiting for me. First I swung by the Brew and Gold for a caffeine hit.

“Looking for Gabe?”

It was Kyra, stirring a sprinkle of cinnamon into her soy chai. Even her beverages were serene and elegant.

“Uh, no. I mean, yeah. Well, I was just going to pick up some papers that I need for my next article,” I said. “Have you seen him?”

“He went home a few hours ago.”

“Oh, cool,” I said. I turned to go.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I paused. Kyra and I weren’t exactly best buds. Should I really be confiding in her?

I decided I didn’t have anything to lose. “I just broke up with my boyfriend.”

Kyra’s eyes widened in sympathy. “Oh, I’m sorry. Breaking up sucks.”

“Yup,” I said shortly.

“I thought …” She paused as though she was considering her words. “I thought you were into this dating thing. Gabe told me he heard you talking to your ex-boyfriend at the Tin Room about some quest to meet a certain number of boys.”

My cheeks flamed red. “Uh, yeah,” I said, mortified. “It was just a joke. A way to get comfortable talking to guys again now that I’m single. Or was single. Or
am
single again.”

“I love that idea,” she said. “It takes serious balls.” I never thought I’d hear someone as delicate as Kyra say the word “balls.” I smiled.

Kyra leveled me with a look. “But maybe this is a good thing.”

“Meaning?”

“Maybe now you can be with the person you’re really crushing on?”

If I thought my cheeks were hot before, my entire face was on fire now. “What do you mean?” I protested weakly.

“Please,” Kyra said, smiling. She gathered all of her hair together and secured it into a messy bun. “‘Dear Answer Goddess:
I’ve got a mad crush on this kid at the paper. I think we’re friends, but I have no idea whether or not he thinks about me “that way.” And I’m afraid to ask, in case he doesn’t. What do I do?’”

I froze, mortified. Was I that transparent?

She laughed. “No, you’re not that obvious,” she said, reading my mind and again suggesting otherwise. “But I’d have to be a moron not to see the chemistry between you and Gabe.”

“But—,” I stammered, “he’s
your
boyfriend. I would
never—”

“Listen,” Kyra said, cutting me off and dropping her voice. “I actually have a secret of my own for you. Since we’re being so honest with each other.”

I looked at her questioningly.

“Gabe and I are old family friends. We grew up together in Highland Park. Our mothers met while we were in playgroup. He’s like a brother to me.”

“So you’re not together?” I asked, stunned. I thought back to all of the times I’d seen them together, all of the times Kyra had slung an arm around his shoulder or
ruffled his hair. I felt like I had at the end of watching
The Sixth Sense:
I’d been hoodwinked. Each incident had been a sham; I’d seen what I’d wanted to see, even though, technically, I could now understand that perhaps I’d misinterpreted the situation. Or even been deliberately misled. My eyes narrowed. “But, I thought …”

“I know you did,” she said. “I think that was a little bit on purpose.”

“Do you, um,
like
Gabe?” I asked nervously. Even if they weren’t properly together, I wasn’t keen on the idea of her as my competition. What with her being a goddess, and all.

“I
love
Gabe,” she said. “And, yeah, I guess there’s a little part of me that ‘likes him likes him.’ I could tell that he has feelings for you, and it bothered me. I’m only human, you know. I guess I just sort of wanted to confuse you.”

“Well, it worked.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Like I said, there was the jealousy factor. There will always be a little part of me that will wonder what it would be like to date Gabe. And then there’s the big-sister thing too—I wanted
to be sure that you were good enough for him.”

I bristled. “And I’m not?” I asked, sitting up straighter in my chair.

“Claudia, when you got here, you were on the rebound. I didn’t want Gabe to get hurt.” She softened. “He’s really into you.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked, barely breathing.

“Think about how he was at that party. He was pissy that you were with Sean.
Were
with Sean. Claudia—you have to tell him. How you feel. How you’re
single.
Seriously. I’ve never seen him look at
anyone
the way he looks at you. And, by the way—”

“Yeah?”

“He
never
gives out passes to shows he wants to see. Let that be a lesson to you.”

“I … wow.” I stood up and stretched. Kyra had dropped a lot on me, all at once. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Talk to Gabe, I supposed, but there was too much going on in my head. I needed to think. I needed some time to myself.

“You need some time to yourself, to think,” Kyra said matter-of-factly. “You’ll process this tonight and you’ll talk to
Gabe this weekend. It’ll all be good.”

I turned to her. “It’s very creepy, the way that you do that,” I said.

She smirked. “It’s a gift.”

I stood and said good-bye. The wheels in my mind were spinning, and I had no idea how to make them stop.

11/7, 8:03 p.m.

from: [email protected]

to: [email protected]

re: the midterm

Hey, there—

Wanna be my study buddy?

—xx

On Monday, our professor announced our upcoming pop culture midterm. Monday night, I e-mailed Gabe about studying. I figured a one-on-one session would be a prime opportunity to talk to him about my feelings. And if I chickened out … well, at least I would have gotten some studying out of the way.