02.01.2002 - 1:42 p.m.

Last night I followed M out to Route 4 to drop his car off at a garage. Neither of us knew where it was. It was dark and foggy. In addition to the half hour to get there in the first place, it took us a bit over an hour to find it. Then I drove him back to campus and myself back home, where my roommate informed me that M had just called back and said it was important. M, bless his idiotic heart, had left his cellphone on the seat. So I drove back to campus, picked up the apologetic M (who had Oreos and a Sprite for me, which was a very good move on his part) and set off back to the garage. We had a lot of good talk in the car, about all sorts of things, but in particular about our respective romantic pasts. We revisited my memories of my worst date ever.

In tenth grade, I was very close with M�s big brother P and P�s best friend S. I never learned chemistry because the three of us sat together. Later that year, or perhaps near the beginning of the next, S asked me out. I remember thinking it came pretty out of the blue�I hadn�t had a clue that he particularly liked me. I had entertained thoughts about P, but never really thought of S as a dating option. I said yes, but told him that I would drive (S�s, um, adventurous style of driving was notorious. He had already practically killed me once, trying to make a 90 degree turn at thirty an hour in the rain. He only missed the truck coming the other way because he jumped the median and bulldozed a small shrub)

So anyway, he wasn�t driving. We decided to see a movie, picking one at random because neither of us knew very much about it. He gave me directions to his house. That night, at the same corner where he had almost killed me, I was looking down at the directions while I finished the turn. I didn�t quite finish. I accidentally jumped the median and caught the edge of my fender on the Keep Right sign. When I got out of the car in front of his house, I saw that I had sort of peeled the front edge of the fender away from the bumper. I spent the entire date alternating between thinking, �I have to tell my parents� and making sure S never saw the driver�s side of my car. I was sure he would never let me live it down. To top it all off, the movie we randomly picked (Dead Man Walking) remains one of the most disturbing and depressing things I have ever seen.

At the time, I wrote it off pretty easily�I had only seen S in school, where he was quiet and a little strange, and mostly content to play second fiddle to P in conversation. But as I got to know him better, especially over summers, I realized how well we probably would have been together. It just never happened, because of circumstance and that one spectacularly lousy date.

I saw S again after my freshman year of college. He wanted to apologize for the date. He thought it was his fault, that he should have made a move, or something. I finally told him about my car. We laughed, but there was nothing to be done about it. We were in different places by then, five hours apart at school. I had a boyfriend.

S is engaged now. He has remained one of my great what-ifs, but I�ve learned to look back on it lightly. I�ve had a long time to get used to it.

P, too, ended up as a what-if: Although I liked him, I never let him find out, because a close friend of mine liked him so much. I didn�t want to hurt her. Besides, he would talk to me sometimes, about how sad it made him to know he couldn�t be as close to her as a friend because he knew she wanted him. I wasn�t about to lose his friendship, so that was another reason to make sure he never, ever found out how I felt.

At this point, M and I had reached the garage, where he got out to retrieve his cellphone. As he got back in the car, he asked me, �So you know the whole story behind that, right?�

�Um, there�s another story behind that?� You see, I thought I had just explained the whole story.

Apparently I had not. Apparently, back when P, S, and I had been not learning Chemistry together, they had both liked me. To the point where they decided that neither of them would let me know how they felt so that their friendship wouldn�t be ruined over a girl. It was only later, when P found himself in a fairly long-term relationship with someone else, that they decided S could stop pretending he only wanted friendship and ask me out. Which was why it surprised me when he finally did.

�Both of them liked me?!?� My brain was having difficulty processing this information.

�Yeeah�I maybe shouldn�t have told you that.� Matt said as I turned, for the fourth time that night, onto Willows road.

I said something like, �No, I�m glad you did. That�s quite possibly one of the sweetest things I�ve ever heard. Sort of. I guess it�s pretty cool that their friendship was that important to them.� And oddly flattering that they thought I could have broken it up, but that last was only a fleeting thought.

�Yeah, although you kind of got the short end of the stick on that one.�

�Yeah,� said my mouth. �No shit,� my brain added.

�Pretty funny, huh.�

�Especially because I spent a year and a half making absolutely sure your brother never knew I liked him. A year and a half. Goddammit.� I think my mental processing had caught up a bit by this point.

My liking P was new to M, which I suppose was good because it meant P really hadn�t ever known, but was bad because it meant M laughed at me for a long time.

We talked about other things for the rest of the drive, until I dropped him off at his dorm. As he was getting out of the car, I had to ask, just to make sure, �P liked me too?�

�Yep. And now he�s married.� M�s smart mouth is one of the reasons he�s such good company, but sometimes�

In any case, I said something rude, I don�t remember what, and went home to complain the whole thing to my roommate and go to my (empty) bed.

So, to sum up:

Thwack. (sound of Irony kicking stonebridge in head)

Thank you, sir. May I have another?

-stonebridge

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