See Dot Smile

Making Amends

The hang at Kendall's ended up being very therapeutic. And I'm not sorry I went.

But the fact that my 3:00 AM liaisons with Joshua are being disrupted by guilt over ditching Bud, means I'm going to have to deal with this as soon as humanly possible.

I decide to clear the air with Bud at lunch on Monday.

But he doesn't show up.

He doesn't show up Tuesday or Wednesday either. Then he doesn't show up for two weeks. I know he's in school because I ask my friends every single day if they've seen him. It gets to the point they're telling me, "Yes, Bud is at school today," before I even sit down. Everyone offers their own explanation for his sudden disappearance from our table.

"He must be eating lunch off campus," Tom says.

Unlikely.

"Maybe he found another group to sit with," Lilliana suggests. "One that gets him."

Mean.

"He's been eating in his car," Kendall says one day over a mouthful of chicken salad.

Bingo.

"Seriously?" I ask. "Are you being serious?"

"Yeah. I saw him out there a few days ago when I was coming back from my doctor's appointment. I said hi." He takes another massive bite of his sandwich, making it impossible for me to interrogate him.

My heart skips erratically. Joshua's toe presses on my instep, but I can't enjoy it. I need to fix this mess with Bud before it further represses the passion needed to nurture my romance with Joshua. "You don't think he's out there today?" I ask. "It's twenty degrees outside."

New England weather does funny things like making you think it's wintertime well before Thanksgiving and then forcing you to dig out your shorts for a freak heat wave in February. Last night a snowstorm blew in and left us in a cold snap. It's kind of fun because it makes me excited for the holidays, but it kind of sucks because I have even more clique shame now about casting Bud off to the arctic parking lot tundra.

Marcus taps my forearm and nods his head toward a near empty table by the kitchen. Bud is sitting by himself. "Thanks, Marcus. You're a sweetheart," I say.

"Hey, get your own man to sweet talk," Tom says. "This one's spoken for."

I'm all for basking in Tom and Marcus's subtle flirtations, but I'm desperate to get to Bud and apologize before he disappears again.

"Where are you going?" Joshua asks with ample 'baby, please don't go' tone.

"I just need to talk to him for a minute," I say.

Joshua pouts playfully and I want to lick his bottom lip for him. I smile to try to convey this particular desire and he blushes.

Nailed it.

I scurry across the room and plop myself down in the seat across from Bud, relieved to have finally caught him. "Hey," I say breathlessly.

"Hey Dot. What's up?" He says it like nothing at all is up and he hasn't been hiding from us for two weeks.

"I've been trying to find you forever," I say. It sounds weirdly romantic, and it has that exact effect on Bud. He turns his eyes down and tries not to smile while his cheeks flood pink.

"Well, you found me," he says. He scrapes his fork over his quinoa salad. If he's eaten any of it, it wasn't very much.

"Have you really been eating in your car for two weeks?" I ask.