You Are

Thirteen – Elliott Smith

Honest. Straightforward. Forthcoming. Transparent. It had been a long day and I was running out of adjectives.

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The idea was to meet up with Linda sometime on Saturday for coffee, dinner, whatever. Catch up on things. She had texted me a couple of weeks ago asking how I was doing. The last time I spoke to her was about a year ago and she had been kind enough to listen to me and offer advice and I appreciated it. Not that her advice was anything particularly original or life changing, but considering that we’d barely said a dozen words to each other before that encounter, I made sure to take her words to heart. She strongly encouraged my dreams of becoming a writer.

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Activision Ice Hockey commercial w/Phil Hartman

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My friend David called me Saturday morning having spoken to Linda. He wondered if he could tag along on our little get together. Since it wasn’t really a date and since he was privy to information that I would have to learn later, there was no good reason for me to tell him not to. I was planning to have some one-on-one time with Linda, but David is a great guy and I needed someone to play basketball with anyway. I assumed she had asked him to come out with us. That assumption was probably incorrect as she sounded confused later when she called me up and I proposed that she come to David’s area to see us. There was that old, insecure part of me that suspected she had called David specifically so that she wouldn’t have to be alone with me. I was cock-blocking myself.

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Perry Bible Fellowship/X-Men

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Long story short, David ended up having somewhere to be and I managed to get home in time to call Linda and invite her over. I’ve always been quick to invite people to my home, which is probably unwise, but that’s how it worked it out. After sitting down, she began to recount the hectic events of the last few days in her life. Her story was a blur of babies being born and sleep being lost, but the telling of it was actually a fascinating thing to observe. She wasn’t complaining and she wasn’t bragging, she was explaining her schedule to me in a calm, patient manner. She sounded content. It was around this moment that she began to seem absolutely terrifying.

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MVP Baseball 2005 lives

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I’d thought we might grab dinner, not because I was hungry but because I thought she might be hungry. She professed a desire to hit up a bakery and I obliged as best I could considering that my knowledge of my neighbourhood is actually pretty crummy. We drove to the nearest plaza and proceeded to walk around for about a half hour looking for pastry. This was the first sign that this girl was different. After we parked, she said that we should just walk around until we find it. That’s exactly the kind of carefree decision making that I admire. We walked up and down, passing by stores that I’d driven by a hundred times but never actually gotten a closer look at. She asked me if I was seeing anybody. Normally, that would be a pretty obvious sign that she was interested in me, but I had done my homework earlier and found out from David that she was in a long distance relationship with a gentleman from Seattle. In any case, I didn’t read too much into her question. We ate crepes and I inquired further. Up until that point, Linda came across as transparent (her words) so it was surprising that asking about her boyfriend caused her to clam up. Maybe she’s shy, maybe she doesn’t share that information with everyone, or maybe I touched some sort of nerve but she kind of giggled and avoided my questions. For a while, anyway.

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Why Sonic sucks

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At some point, I must have mentioned (read: overtly boasted) that I consider myself to be a crooner and she demanded that I play some songs for her when we got back to my place. I ran through a couple of my original tunes, which didn’t exactly get the warmest response. She said I seemed to start off slowly, but that I sounded more passionate as the song went on. She said my voice was “okay”. You might think this would hurt me, but I’ve found that those kinds of comments are only truly hurtful if you believe that there is some sort of agenda attached to them. If there was anything beyond the surface of Linda’s comments, I was unable to detect it. Thankfully, my parents came home before I could embarrass myself further and before they could embarrass me further, I reminded Linda that she’d wanted to walk around my street and soon we were out the front door again.

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GI Joe – Cobra switch

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A glutton for punishment, Linda asked me to sing for her again, a cappella. I hadn’t sung a cappella for anyone in a long time and I was actually nervous about singing for the first time in a while. I couldn’t think of a song that I felt confident about, but something in the evening air reminded me of the LEAD retreat back in high school, which was the first time I ever felt like I could actually carry a tune. Those were good times. For some reason, we were obsessed with the classic Ben E. King song, Stand By Me. I sang it for Linda and despite flubbing the words, I managed to produce a competent version of the song and she looked genuinely pleased. She told me to stop playing guitar because it got in the way of my vocals. That was nice of her.

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Batman and Boners

Dark Knight jokes

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Talking to Linda is tricky, but there’s also this sense that nothing you say can be all that bad because she’s not the kind of person who would call you out on it. As the night went on, aspects of my personality began to gradually reveal themselves: my skewed optimism, my fear of dogs, my habit of making subtle jokes that nobody besides myself would find amusing…she took it all in stride. I told her that if I could use one word to describe how I live my life, it would be cautiously. She challenged me to take more chances, to not be afraid of things. By the time we settled down on some church steps, it seemed like we’d talked about everything but the conversation carried on. There were a few silent moments as we watched the cars go by, but they didn’t seem awkward at all. If anything, they seemed rife with possibility. I found myself looking right into her eyes on at least a couple of occasions and I couldn’t help but think of what could happen if her situation was different. What could happen if I was different.

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Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit

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Linda made another comment that stopped me in my tracks. I don’t remember what she said exactly because that sort of thing was becoming commonplace with her, but I could only shake my head and laugh before turning to her and attempting to speak:

You are… She looked to me, waiting on what I would say. I had no idea how to finish that sentence.

I’m not going anywhere and neither are any of you. There will be other evenings of storytelling. Worry not, children.
And will the stories have–
*sigh* Happy endings? You and your happy endings. I have seen such things. Such horror. Fear and death. Indeed, I’ve been responsible for my share of it. So it’s apparent to me as I look around at all this…how you being safe here with me. You, your parents, and your children too, when you have them. This planet…my planet and its glory and wonder and you, it’s people, safe and free of fear. Don’t you see my child? This planet and you…that is the happy ending.