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Bonus Chapter 1: Beef Burritos
On my third date with Stephanie Huarez, Elliot Samuels wouldn’t leave my mind.
The plan was simple: Get a girlfriend. Experience the dizzying, fool-creating emotion called love. Finally escape the embarrassing realization that your life and identity rested solely on your relationship with another 16 year old boy.
I got good grades. I was well liked at school. My parents occasionally expressed their pride in me. And I was on track to have one of the best high school experiences possible, aside from getting like a nobel prize of course. But the boy I trusted more than anyone in this world was also the source of my biggest problem.
“Look, they forgot the accent on the n. That’s literally Spanish 101,” Stephanie complained, pointing out the word jalapenos with a scoff.
“Steph, you knew this place was Tex Mex.”
“Yes, I thought it was Tex Mex. But I also thought the owners weren’t stupid.” The fire in her eyes—fanned by anger and not sexual passion—blazed alive then dimmed just as fast. “Sorry, I’m supposed to be focused on us right now.”
You’re doing a better job than me
I’d compared Stephanie’s music taste to Elly’s when she was on aux during the drive over, disappointed that she didn’t have songs from the small indie band El and I discovered back when we were ten. I’d been disappointed when Steph only helped me clean up instead of making fun of me for spilling a half full cup of water. And I’d already laughed to myself 3 times when I imagined jokes Elliot would have made if he were here.
I wanted him here. Desperately. Like the ache in my chest was caused by a physical ailment and not a pathetic dependence on a boy who shouldn’t mean so much to me.
Other than the 4 musketeers, Elly and I’s friend groups didn’t overlap. My casual friendships were with the athletes. The connected types. The kids who got elected for homecoming court. His acquaintances preferred sticking to the walls and making fun of said princes and princesses of homecoming. Meaning, it wasn’t uncommon for people to ask why we were such good friends.
So how could I explain to them that they were the ones who didn’t make sense?
The grades, the friends, the family approval, all of it could come and go as it pleased. But I genuinely didn’t think I could survive if Elliot Samuels wasn’t in my life for the rest of the time I spent on this earth.
And there comes the problem.
That’s not normal!
“Don’t worry about it. We have plenty of time,” I reassured her. Holding her hand seemed like the next logical step so I reached across the table, enveloping her smooth skin with my palm. “And I get it. There are lots of people who have no business running Japanese restaurants that still do.”
Stephanie’s eyes lit up in recognition, like she’d forgotten I wasn’t some white hockey player whose family’s been here for generations. She gave me that look pretty often, and it was always followed with her bright, relieved smile.
Then she closed her menu, pressing uncovered arms against its plastic to lean toward me with a grin.
“I’ll pick the place next time,” she teased.
“Sounds good to me.”
Dinner that night marked our third date, a sign that our summer fling might crystallize into something more tangible. Running into her on the beach and flirting while we hit a volleyball over Woodbine’s sand was fun. Stopping by ice cream parlors and local parks to pass the summer was also fun. A semi formal dinner where I wore cologne and she didn’t wear sneakers or converse? Well, that smelled like serious. Like commitment.
It was just the thing I was hoping to find over the summer after Elly went on a week-long vacation and I felt like my soul was gone.
I wasn’t in love with him. I wasn’t even gay!
If I had been harboring secret feelings for my best friend, hypothetically speaking, wouldn’t I have figured it out by now? Since we’d known each other for . . . well, forever?
Our relationship was perfectly platonic; it was just too perfect. We were too close. It was time for me to spread my wings and get a life outside of Elliot Samuels. And that started with figuring out if the earnest girl in front of me could help me do that.
We ordered burritos (more because that gave us the most food for our money and we were jobless high schoolers) and dug in as soon as they arrived. 10 minutes into the meal, as we laughed about our matching food covered hands and mouths, I realized I made a mistake.
This was the worst place to take a girl out on a third date.
Talking was awkward when napkins and water did little to clean up our faces. And, if we did kiss at any point that night, all I would taste are the onions mixed into the ground beef.
Honestly, we hadn’t kissed yet. And I didn’t want our first one to taste . . . saucy.
” . . . I’m not sure where I’ll go to school yet or what job I’ll have. I just want the chance to help women,” she explained when I asked about her post high school plans. “There are so many women around the world that don’t get the same protections that we do here in North America and I can’t do much to help them, but I could do something.”
This version of Stephanie was at odds with the girl I’d met at the beach or at the park. For the second time in an hour, I saw that fire. I started to wonder if that dark sort of light was the real Stephanie, not the other way around.
“Wow, I didn’t think you were the social justice warrior type,” I joked. I wanted to say something serious instead but anything I came up with paled in comparison to her instinctual mission statement. So I didn’t bother trying.
“Sorry, did my feminism turn you off?” she tilted her head, pouting in a way that felt patronizing. “We can end the date right here if you want.”
Her straight white teeth were bared in a blatant challenge so I raised my hands in surrender.
“No, I like it,” I admitted, my smile stretching when her guard came down. “Social justice warrior suits you.”
Her even, tanned skin made way for a blush, vibrant and pink similar to the one Elly wore when I made a particularly sus joke. She was embarrassed and relieved, a startling combination that only highlighted how beautiful she was.
At the end of the night, when we stood alone on her porch, we kissed. It wasn’t saucy or garlicky or anything gross at all. It was nice. Pleasant. Comforting in a way that I rarely found women outside of my mother to be. We kissed because looking at her from across that dinner table, I thought that she definitely wasn’t Elly. She wasn’t as loud or as funny or confusingly attractive in the most masculine way possible.
No, she was something else entirely. We could never create the special relationship that Elly and I shared. But maybe the two of us could be something special too.
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Rin’s POV! How exciting! I hope you enjoyed my first attempt at writing from his perspective. It was fun to create it, for sure!
Also, Happy Holidays and pre-New Year. The next time I post will be in the New Year, how wild!
Please vote, comment, share, follow, anything else you can do with this book and I will see you next year! Bye!
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