Click to Subscribe - By L. M. Augustine Page 0,10
you must promise to bring us each a Chewbacca glass so we can drink out of it like awkward badasses. Deal?
DEAL.
Guuuuh this will rule. I seriously cannot wait.
Yes!!! Okay, I gotta go, Sam. Bye!
Peace out, Pizza Cow Ninja.
*disappears with dramatic sweep of cape*
***
The rest of the day goes by pretty fast. I head to school a few minutes later and whiz through my first few classes. After the day is over, Cat and I meet to do homework and eat dinner at a local Chili’s. We don’t talk much during it, aside from making fun of our Physics teacher’s Albert Einstein-esque hair, and I slip in a few more emails with Harper while she’s in the bathroom. Harper and I talk a little more about the meeting place when I come home, and we agree to meet on Friday at a nearby coffee shop.
Three days away.
I of course have not told my dad about the meet-up, nor do I plan to. I’d rather risk getting abducted by a potential pedophile who has been pretending to be Harper Knight, sixteen-year-old girl, this whole time than admit to him I have feelings for someone I met over the internet. I don’t know exactly how he’d react, but I’m certain it would start with him laughing at me, commenting on the stupidity of falling for someone online who I’ve never even seen a picture of, and then he’d eventually find every possible way to make snide remarks with it. “Loser son.” “Can’t get a date.” “Only girlfriend is found through the internet.” That kind of crap.
The next day, a Wednesday, flies by equally fast. I don’t talk to Cat or Harper or my dad much, just go to school, do my homework, film my next vlog, and go to bed. I don’t sleep that night, though. Instead, I spend the whole of it imagining Harper and what she looks like—I’ve nailed her down as brown-haired, lightly tanned, with green eyes and perfect cheekbones. I wonder how our meeting will go and what it’ll be like to finally sit down next to her and just talk to her, person to person, me to her. Will she be as funny in real life as she is online? Will I be charmed by her even more in person?
As I lie there in bed, my eyes closed, I imagine what her laugh sounds like in real life, whether her eyes sparkle, whether her mouth is always curled into a smile like I imagine it is. I wonder what she looks like when she’s eating pizza, or how she would dress for Halloween, or what she would be like, fitting into my life. For real. And also, a small part of me wonders whether I’ll strike up the courage to tell her how I really feel about her—and, if I do, how she’ll react.
But beyond all that, a much larger part of me is scared. Not scared about Harper being a fifty-year-old man (okay, well, kind of that too), but scared of what she’ll think of me. Scared she’ll decide I’m actually a loser dorky kid, scared she’ll think I’m stupid or annoying or whatever it may be. Scared she’ll leave me and never want to be a part of my life again.
Even more so, I worry she won’t feel the same way about me as I feel about her. I mean, of course Harper and I have talked about “us” and what we are and want to become together. We have plenty of times, especially for an internet couple, but neither of us ever mentioned dating or kissing or any kind of attraction. Sure, she’s said she liked me before and joked about sexual things between us, but maybe she means “like” as a friend and the jokes as just harmless comments. Maybe I’m totally overplaying this whole thing.
My heart sinks at the thought, and I run my hand through my hair. Shit. I always assumed we mutually, well, like liked each other, but now I realize it was only that: an assumption. She never actually said she liked me that way, and I never asked. I just hoped, wanted it so much I made it true in my head.
A groan escapes my lips. Oh shit shit shit. What if I’ve been overplaying this whole thing? What if she only sees us as friends and this whole meet-up is so she can properly be just that: my friend? What if, if I tell her how I really