"Wait—what the hell is that?" he says, an incredulous laugh in his voice.
"It’s a pedal tone chord. It’s like a Cadd9, but you put your…" I trail off. "You know a G, right?" He nods and places his fingers in a G formation. I pull one of his long, pale fingers off of the bottom string and move it down a string. "Now, put your pinky on the last string." He strums the G. "It kind of adds something, doesn’t it?" I ask, and I look up at the wrong time because I’m looking right into his eyes. Look away. He switches back and forth from a G to a Cadd9 and then his fingers start flying up and down the fret board. Those fingers just can’t be trained, confined to simplicity. I smile at the intricate noise and watch his hands. It's like a whole other language, that his hands whisper to my strings, one that my hands don't quite know how to translate yet. My strings seem to like it, because they respond beautifully. They learn quickly, much faster than I. When I look up, our eyes meet again. He asks me something but I don’t even hear it. I blink.
"Do you want your guitar?" he says again.
"No, you can keep playing… Just give it to me when you’re done." He hands it to me immediately and I am honestly a little disappointed.
We’re talking and it’s not as meaningless as I expect and something is happening in me that shouldn’t be happening.
I start playing "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down because that song makes me think about Floyd. Floyd. Yeah, him. Damn you Floyd, for getting sick, and leaving me to watch Jordan and realize just how--
What am I thinking?
Logic has failed me and my brain is turning against me.
I spend time with Jordan and it feels like the first day that I met him, which is not good. Something is new and something is different about us today, maybe the fact that I’m "over" him and he’s looking at me and talking to me and I’m trying very, very, very hard to ignore those eyes and that smile and that music and those hands and everything that I fell in love with on the very first day.
"I kind of want to get the other guitar from the band room. Will you come down with me?" he asks and I can’t say no and that bugs me. We go downstairs, and we’re laughing, having some sort of bizarre conversation, the kind I'm only in the mood for when I'm happy. And I am. Why? I laugh harder when I hear him laughing, because his laugh is so amusing. We walk side by side, laid back and comfortable like friends should be and I want to catch one of his hands with one of my swinging arms and hold it. When I realize this, I want to slam my head against the wall repetitively until I realize how incredibly stupid I am being.
I spend the rest of the morning thinking and mentally slapping myself across the face. Snap out of it. I keep shoving Jordan out of my mind until sometime around second period, I let him in. He curls up with my reluctant affection. I let myself want to love him. I let myself want to make him happy.
And you know why I let that happen?
Because "I may be dumb, but I’m not a dweeb, just a sucker with no self-esteem."
Who said anything about a weak point? I am strong enough to want to hold Jordan’s hand without wanting to hold it forever. I'd say that's more of a strong point than a weak point.
Maybe this is just how I get myself through Wednesdays that otherwise suck. May as well make them worth glorifying, right?
And then it is Thursday and I am back to random but meaningful conversation and smiling and laughing with Floyd. I always feel a warm, proud feeling when I make Floyd laugh. Our popsicle stick bridge is actually starting to look like a bridge and we are gluing and clamping and taping and it is all very frustrating but we are talking and standing very close which makes it all better.
"Michelle was thrilled that you weren’t here yesterday," I say. "She was like, "Guess what! Floyd isn’t here! This is great!" and I was like, "Yes, I know."
"'And that makes me very sad,'" Floyd says to finish off my thoughts exactly with a grin on his face. No comment. He totally knows. Or maybe I’m just overreacting. Love, or like, or attraction, or obsession or whatever this is should not be a frustrating guessing game. I’m not chasing him down, I’m simply just walking. I don’t follow him. He doesn’t follow me. We just walk side by side and ponder if we should be holding hands. At least I do.
And Jordan still wanders around in the very back of my mind, but I am focusing all of my daydreamer dreams on the boy who hasn’t let me down yet.
I hate to think about it and say this, but if Floyd was ever to let me down…for some reason…
I know exactly where I would go next.
And that bugs me.
When I get on the bus after school, a song is playing. I hear only a few of the words before it ends. I'm not over you. Even the radio hates me. "Hey," Yuuki says to get my attention. I turn my head toward where she sits across the aisle. "This music sucks." I nod. Yes Yuuki, it does.
Oh well. I guess all good chefs have to pay attention to the things they put on the back burner every once in a while. Right?
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