Lessons On Love

19: Disgusting Or Charming

Chapter 19: Disgusting Or Charming?

            It was pass eleven, it looked cold outside, he was all the way downtown and he was drunk – there were a lot of reasons why I told Marshall I wasn’t going to go. I could make an entire list if I had the energy to, but I didn’t, I just told him I was going to bed instead.

            “Fine,” he shouted into the phone. “Don’t come! Just go to sleep!”

            “Ok,” I yawned. “Goodnight.”

            “No wait! I didn’t mean that!”

            “Well then, what?”

            “Look… Can’t you… I don’t know. Isn’t there something I can do to make you come?”

            I heaved a sigh into the phone since the conversation was starting to drag and I just wanted to go to sleep. “Marshall,” I groaned, adding a tone of finality in my voice to strengthen the impact. “You can sit there and wait for me the entire night if you want, but I’m not– ”

            “Okay,” he said.

            “Okay what?”

            “Okay, I’ll sit here and wait for you.”

            “No, that’s what I meant: that I’m not going to– ”

            “In front of the clock-tower fountain, I’ll sit here and wait for you.”

            “I’m not going,” I told him, and that was when Marshall decided to entertain me with a boyish chuckle.  

            “That’s okay Camila,” he said. “I’ll still wait for you.”

            I hung up after, flicked off the lights and crawled into bed. Stupidity was like a virus and I was certain the more time I spent with Marshall, the more likely the chance I’d catch it. Did he actually take me for an idiot? Why would I believe him? Who in the world would actually sit there the entire night and wait for someone that swore they weren’t going to come? Only an idiot would do that!

            I yawned, shifted on my bed until I found the perfect spot, and then relaxed my mind. He would probably wait for twenty minutes, no ten, before he got bored and found something else better to do. Call up another girl maybe. There was no need for me to ponder over it; I had two theatre productions tomorrow – one at four and one at seven – and I needed to get enough rest tonight or else I wouldn’t perform at my optimal.

            “Alright Camila,” I yawned. “Sleep. Sleep. Go to sleep.”

            Twenty minutes later, I was in my car, pulling out of the driveway and heading downtown towards the clock-tower fountain. Initially, I had already fallen semi-asleep when the realization hit me like a tonne of falling bricks. I mean, wasn’t I missing the biggest point in this whole entire thing? Sure, only an idiot would actually wait all night, but Marshall was an idiot! He was an idiot right? He was a complete idiot!