🪝The Hook: The Time that Hot Guy Pushed My Hair Behind My Ear
💔 Conner, Part 5
Missed the first parts of Conner’s story? Catch up with them below:
Leaning into the fall of my senior year, I was swamped with commitments: senior assistant editor of the yearbook staff, theatre and drama club, choir, and a decent load of AP classes. We all still frequented the Music Pit as much as our time would allow, and the typical teenager in me yearned for yet another commitment despite my already brimming schedule: The Boyfriend.
Aurora had learned that Conner and his girlfriend had split up, but I didn’t rejoice in this like I would have over the summer.
“Why aren’t you freaking out?!” Erin asked accusingly after the information was presented to me. She was sitting next to me in my car as I drove, obviously expecting a spaz attack, and I was letting her down.
“I just don’t want to get my hopes up,” I told her. “If he’s single now but ends up going out with someone else, I’m going to be disappointed again.” She looked at me empathetically.
“Oh,” she said. “That makes sense.”
“If I don’t expect anything, I can’t fall as hard and get hurt,” I said, more to talk myself down than to explain it to her. It was easy for me to say because I was so distracted with everything I had going on, but I was happy; I was just burying it. Erin couldn’t see the huge smile I was trying not to let escape. Everything I told her was true, though. I was happy he was available again, but I was also dejected. I was expecting him to look right over me and go out with some other pretty girl like he had before, and when that happened, I would just feel incredibly dumb and sad. Again.
Conner had started to call me from time to time just to ask me quick questions or to talk for a few minutes, and although I was always elated when he called, he never gave any hint of wanting something more, so I stayed as detached as possible.
“Dang, you’re pimpin’ out all these guys.”
The smooth voice of my best male friend from South Carolina taunted me over the phone. I had just caught him up about meeting Mike at the Music Pit.
“I just told you about one guy,” I corrected him, walking around my room trying to tidy it up. It was the only chaos in my life that I felt I could keep under control.
“Yeah, but you know you have something going on with that Band Fellah,” he said pointedly. He knew his name was Conner, but he refused to say it. He still claimed he was jealous of him, even though he had a girlfriend himself, a girl we both had known since middle school.
“Nothing is happening with the Band Fellah,” I said, disgruntled. The reminding sting of longing coursed through me as the subject came up. “He’s single now and doesn’t appear to be interested.”
I took this displeasing information out on my clothes, thrusting them into my hamper with unnecessary aggression.
The room now tidy, I walked over to my denim blue futon, which I had made up into a couch, and sat down, criss-crossing my legs as I leaned back. I was hoping that cleaning my room would help me clear my mind, but I still felt like my thoughts were jumbled up in there.
“Just because things aren’t happening at the pace you’d like doesn’t mean he isn’t interested,” he told me. I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to admit it to him. He wouldn’t let me forget it if I did. And I was tired. I had a lot of schoolwork to do.
“Ughhh,” I moaned, making my stress known to the room. “I have to go. I have a lot of stuff to do.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “Love you.”
“You, too.” I tossed the phone to the side, took a breath, then went to grab my messenger bag.
One night, everything 180-ed.
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