“Hey,” I heard someone say behind me. “Marissa, right?”
The male voice had gotten closer now. I turned around and looked up into a pair of deep-set hazel eyes. Brandon’s eyes.
Chapter Seven
“Yeah. I mean, hi.” My palms began to itch as he stepped toward me.
“Could we…” He paused and let out a heavy sigh. “Talk?”
“Talk?” I repeated. The word sounded foreign coming out of my mouth, like it was the first time I had ever said it. “Well, yeah. I mean, okay.” The action of putting thoughts cohesively together was eluding me.
“There’s a little coffee shop on Main Street.”
“Oh yeah, Main Street Coffee Shop. I know the place.” The more I spoke, the dumber I felt.
His mouth turned up into a gentle smile, and I felt a flutter inside me. “Yeah, that’s the one. Do you need a ride?”
“Oh, no. I’m good. I mean, I have my car. I’ll meet you over there.” I could feel beads of sweat forming on my brow, and I hoped he didn’t notice.
“Okay, I’ll see you there in a few.” We walked together, but apart, as we found our way to our cars. I gave him a lame wave and ducked inside my car.
While I drove to the coffee shop, I began to panic. What if he was angry? He didn’t seem angry but what if he was trying to be all cool at school with all the other students around, and now at the coffee shop he was going to lay into me. Wait — there would be people in the coffee shop too. He had too much time to think about what he was going to say to me. But I hadn’t had nearly enough time to figure out what I was going to say. Okay, that wasn’t true. I had thought about this apology over and over again, but I never thought he’d be the one to ask me to talk. This completely threw me off. What was his intention? Before I could drive myself any nuttier with questions, I arrived at the Main Street Coffee Shop. As I parked my car, I watched him walk inside. Butterflies were going to war inside my stomach.
“Have a seat.” He waved his hand at the chair adjacent to him. “Oh wait, a drink. What do you want?”
“What? Me? Oh, I’ll go up and get it myself.” He was standing to the side of me, and all of a sudden, I felt claustrophobically uncomfortable. Man, he was tall.
“I’m going up there anyway. What do you want?”
I avoided his eyes as I pulled two dollars out of my purse and handed it to him. “Just a medium coffee. Thanks.”
He let out a small laugh as he took my money and walked to the counter. It was hard to get a read on him. Of course it had only been a total of maybe three minutes since we’d been here, but I still wondered what his deal was. His tone wasn’t friendly, but it wasn’t upset either. It was just sort of flat.
“Coffee.” He said as he put the cup in front of me.
“Thanks.” I took the cover off to let it cool faster.
Brandon put his cup on the table then leaned back far in his chair. “So,” he began. He looked at me, and his eyes seemed to be emitting heat through my body. So much so that I wanted to take my cardigan off. “I don’t exactly know what to say.”
My heart began to race.
“I guess I’ll start with… thank you,” he said.
What? “Hold on, you’re thanking me?” My voice raised an octave in my astonishment.
“Yes.”
“You don’t want to, like, have me arrested or something?”
He let out a laugh. “Have you arrested? You’re kind of weird, you know that?” He shook his head and mumbled the word “arrested” again as he leaned forward and took a sip of his coffee.
“I just, I know how mad you were the other day.” I made circles on the table with my index finger.
He sighed. “I know. I was. It’s just…” It seemed like he was searching for words in the air. “You took me off guard, you know?”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you yesterday, but you weren’t in school.” I wanted to go into this big speech I had prepared about how sorry I was — how truly, deeply, sorry I was — but I didn’t. Instead, I just took a sip of my coffee and subsequently burned my tongue.
“So can you tell me again how you got the letter?” His voice was soft, and he leaned closer to me
I began fidgeting with the zipper-pull on my purse. “You see, Brandon.” Saying his name made my tongue feel hot. Where would I start? “The short version is I’m a runner, and that cemetery is along one of the routes I run. So, my shoelace came untied, and when I was tying it, I happened to see your family. I saw the little boy and his balloon. I didn’t think much of it.” Now that was a lie. “Anyway, when I came back that way at the end of my run, I saw the balloon in the tree, and I recognized it as yours so I got it down.”
