The Bastard
After a few days to debate what to do for our first date, Zac and I still couldn’t come up with very special or romantic. Honestly, as long as I was with him, I didn’t really care what we did or where we went. It sounded too cheesy for life to admit that, though, so I kept that thought to myself and let Zac decide where we were going.
In the end, we went to a Braum’s not too far off campus and tried not to freeze our asses off as we sat outside and ate. There was just enough of a chill in the air to make sitting outside with our ice cream sodas ridiculous, but it was ridiculous in a 1950s teen movie sort of way and I loved it.
Afterward, we drove around for a bit before deciding to stop by Hasting’s. It had been too long since I had bought a new book that wasn’t required reading for one of my classes, so I couldn’t resist asking Zac to stop there.
It might not have been a conventional first date by any means, but it seemed perfect for us.
We wandered around the store together at first, holding hands and making stupid little small talk about the books that we found. It was a little awkward, and reminded me of those silly high school dates spent walking aimlessly around Wal-Mart. Those dates had never been about anything more than showing off to all the other high school couples doing exactly the same thing, and I always found it tedious. I supposed that was partially because I was never with the boy I wanted to be with, but even now that I was, I wasn’t entirely sure how to act with him.
Eventually, he found a stack of comic books that caught his interest. I might have been a geek, but comic books bored me. I just stared at Zac while he tried to explain what was so special about the particular issue he was looking at, and I felt my eyes begin to glaze over.
“You’re not listening at all are you?” Zac finally paused to ask.
I giggled. “Not really. Sorry. I’ll go find something I like, you look at these and we’ll meet up over at the café, okay?”
“Okay,” Zac replied, giving me a quick peck on the cheek.
My cheek positively tingled as I walked away. It still felt so odd to be with him, and so openly, too. It wasn’t that I disliked it at all, but it was all so new, and after wanting it for so long, it did almost seem wrong to actually have it. Like I didn’t really deserve it or him. I kept waiting to wake up and realize my entire relationship with Zac had been nothing more than a dream.
With those thoughts in mind, I wandered aimlessly around the store, eventually finding my way to the young adult section. I was almost twenty, but these books written for teenagers were still my favorite. It wasn’t the romance; well, maybe it was. But the romance was almost always secondary to the real magic—dragons, wizards, and all sorts of fantasy worlds that sounded so much more interesting than my real life.
On the other hand, my real life had been pretty damn interesting this semester. Only instead of dragons and wizards, it had sorority girls and slutty older brothers.
I scanned the shelves for a few minutes before settling on a book I had been hearing a lot about but hadn’t had a chance to read yet–The Raven Boys. The paperback was pretty cheap, so I decided to grab the sequel as well. I tucked a bookmark advertising Rainbow Rowell’s newest book inside and decided I probably needed to go find my boyfriend.
No, I really would never get tired of calling him that, I decided.
And there he was. With a sheepish grin on his face, Zac shuffled toward me, and I realized he was holding a shopping bag.
“What’d you buy me?” I asked.
“I bought me a couple of the Walking Dead novels,” he replied, then reached into the bag and pulled out something that didn’t look like a zombie comic book at all. “And then I picked out this for you. I know how much you love all your books, and I just thought, you know, you might be ready to start writing your own.”
“And what would you suggest that I write about?” I asked, plucking the notebook from his hands. The cover was adorned with portraits of famous authors as though they were punk rockers, and I had to giggle. It was perfect.
“I dunno,” Zac said. “I was thinking maybe a romance? You know, about a guy who finally wakes up and realizes that trying to just be friends for fear the girl doesn’t feel the same way just isn’t going to work. Something like that.”
“You think that would be a good story?”
He grinned. “Well, I think it would have a happy ending.”
“I think so too,” I replied, then leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. “And I think it’s latte time now. Let me just go check out.”
“Caramel, right? Go on, I’ll order,” Zac said.
With another quick kiss, I sent him on to the café and joined the short checkout line. It wasn’t that long, but it still seemed to take forever. I glanced around as I waited, and my eyes landed on what I thought was a familiar figure. I wasn’t sure, since I had only met Molly’s boyfriend Parker the one time, but I thought I would have recognized that combination of ginger beard and cardigan anywhere. He looked my way, and I thought he seemed to recognize me. I opened my mouth to speak, but he turned and walked out the door before I could decide what to say.
That was odd, but I didn’t have much time to think about it. I realized with a start that it was finally my turn to check out. I stepped up to the register, and as I paid for my books, I put that odd little encounter out of my mind.
A few moments later, I was on my way to the café portion of the shop. I found Zac just stepping away from the counter with two steaming cups in his hands. There was something strange on his face, similar to how I thought I must look after that near encounter with the mysterious TA.
As I took the cup Zac held out to me, I said, “The weirdest thing just happened. I’m not sure, but I think I just saw—well, I can’t say who. And I can’t say why I can’t say who. But this guy Molly has been dating. And he seemed to be in a real hurry to leave.”
“Well,” Zac said, nodding toward a corner table, tucked into an alcove created by shelves of paperbacks. “I think I can probably guess why he didn’t want to stick around.”
Once I saw who was sitting at the table, her face streaked with tears, I had a feeling I knew, too. I scurried to the table with Zac hot on my heels and practically fell into the chair next to Molly. While Zac was pulling another chair over from the table next to us, I asked, “What happened?”
Molly just shook her head and sniffled.
“Okay,” I said. “We don’t have to talk about it. It’s okay. We can just sit here for now, and we’ll talk about it later when you’re ready.”
“I’m—I’m never going to get ready,” Molly stuttered out. She picked up an already crumpled napkin and dabbed her eyes with it. “He—he was, I thought he was finally ready to go public, you know? I mean, it’s nearly the end of the semester anyway, and this is the closest to campus and the most public place we’ve ever met.”
Zac’s eyebrows knotted together in confusion, and I shot him a look that I hoped told to him to stay quiet for now and I would answer his questions later. I rubbed Molly’s back reassuringly, waiting for her to continue.
“But I think he was really just… just trying to make sure I didn’t cause a scene. Make it look like we were just meeting up for a tutoring session or something, I don’t know. But he knew that I knew I couldn’t yell at him or protest too much if there were people around who might hear something they shouldn’t hear.”
“What… what would you be yelling about?’ I asked softly.
“About him going abroad next semester,” she choked out. “And that was fine, really. I mean, I was dreading it, but I knew he had applied to the program. I just didn’t think he would really get in. And I didn’t think that it would be the end of us. I didn’t think he would just… end it so he could run off to fucking Germany and be free to fuck all the German chicks he wanted.”
“He didn’t say that, did he?”
“Well, no,” Molly replied. “But why else? Why else would he just end it when we were about to have our chance to really be together? I guess it’s good in way. Better than cheating on me, right?”
“That’s probably how he’s trying to justify it to himself,” Zac cut in. When we both turned to stare at him, he just shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know the guy. At all. But I know guys. And I’m sure he’s telling himself it’s better to end it now before he does something to actually break your heart. It doesn’t make it any less bullshit, though.”
“And it doesn’t break my heart any less,” Molly whispered.
“I know, sweetheart,” I replied, leaning against her. “I know. And that’s why my wonderful boyfriend is going to buy us some of those big chocolate muffins and why I’m going to text his brother and see if he can spare a few bottles from the liquor store he calls his kitchen. And then we’re going to stuff our faces with empty calories, get shitfaced and forget about Parker the bastard.”
“That won’t really fix anything,” Molly replied, sniffling. “But I appreciate the thought. I really do.”
Zac scurried off, digging in his pockets for a few bills. I was lucky, I supposed, that I’d had years to train him, even when I didn’t realize I was doing it at all. I was just lucky in general, I thought, glancing back at Molly who was staring at Zac.
“Can we clone him?” She asked. “Not that I—I mean, Zac’s yours. You know I never felt that way about him. But he’s one of the good ones, and I’m starting to wonder if there are very many others. And if there are, what are my chances of finding one?”
“Well, it’ll be easier to find a good one now that you’ve gotten that asshole out of your life,” I replied. “I’m sorry, I know that’s crass. But you can’t dwell. And I know that’s rich, considering how long I pined after Zac. But Parker clearly wasn’t meant to be, and all of this hurt will fade in time. Maybe it won’t go away completely, but it will fade, and someone new will come along to replace him and make you wonder what you ever saw in him. I promise.”
Molly gave me a weak smile. “I hope you’re right.”
“Didn’t you know?” I asked, grinning. “I’m always right.”
Molly gave me a playful shove and laughed. At least I could still make her smile, I decided. I knew she probably didn’t believe me right then, but I was sure time would show that I was right. I didn’t know if I believed that everything happened for a reason, because some shit was so bad there really wasn’t a good reason for it at all, but I had to believe that what was meant to happen would, eventually, happen.
If time could eventually bring me and Zac together, then I was sure Molly would eventually find the right guy for her, too.