Smarty Pants

A short story of how Andy and I did not meet. 

A fun assignment once again for my creative writing group. 

I am still a work in progress.

Smarty Pants

“Ok- I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I love you!” I hung up the phone. My heart stopped and immediately began to race. What did I just say? Andy and I have only been on a few dates. This relationship isn’t ready for the “L” word. I start to panic. I blink my eyes, slowly look around the room, and fell back on my bed. Wait a minute, that was a dream! Right? I tried to convince myself. It felt so real. The reality of what I had just said seemed so distant, yet so real. I blinked my eyes, and felt the tiredness in them.  They were hard to open. Of course that was a dream! I never felt so relieved in my life!

The first time I saw Andy was in Econ 1010. We sat in a class of 100 people, the air was thick and unpleasant. The teachers voice was high pitched and obnoxious. Nothing was interesting about the room besides the people surrounding me. Andy sat in the front row and participated heavily. He would ask intriguing questions like, “What’s the difference between fixed costs and marginal costs of selling another unit?” Maybe it was the vibration of his low voice or the way he could take a boring subject and joke about it, whatever it was, it was him, and not the teacher that gave me an inkling of joy in the class.

After the end of the semester and scarcely passing, I saw this dark haired, scruffy faced boy all over campus! In the computer lab, in lines at the food court, studying in the library, at school concerts, at the local climbing gym, laughing with girls on campus, and playing soccer with a group of friends. He was so alive and bright with a constant, gentle looking smirk on his face. Sadly, I felt like a ghost in his presence.

It was Friday night and I sat in my room reading. The smell of my pasta dinner still lingered in the air. My roommate Gwen called out to me, “We are heading up to the basketball game if you want to come!” I jumped out of my bed and frantically grabbed my blue shirt and put it on as i ran out the door, how did i forget there was a game tonight. An Aggie game in the spectrum is a special event, its not something I like to miss. It’s loud, full of spirit, and exciting to watch. We were lucky to get seats the 6th row back, surrounded by similarly dressed fans. I sat near the end of our row with three empty seats next to me.

As the game still had 10 minutes before starting I was doing my typical people watching routine. Sitting silently and contentedly scanning the crowd. Excitement filled the air with laughter and high fives. I saw a few figures out of the corner of my eye walking down our aisle towards the empty seats next to me. As they neared closer I glanced at the 3 boys and my heart stopped. There he was. And for the first time he was looking right at me. My hands felt clammy. My throat locked up. I quickly glanced away and fumbled with my phone.

“Are these seats taken?”

I looked up trying to act casual and cleared my throat.

“No, go ahead”

I attempted a smile, which felt completely fake to me. Here was my chance to finally meet this stranger and I was too afraid to say anything more. I looked away, then at my phone, then at the scoreboard, then at my friends. I started screaming in my head, “What do I do!”

Luckily my friends helped break my now awkward silence as they began shuffling seats and Gwen plopped beside me.

“Patrick just texted. He wants to go get ice cream after the game. I thought he wasn’t interested so I’ve been going out with Jason. I totally like Patrick over Jason but now what do I do about Jason?”

The volume of the stadium had been increasing since we arrived and now music was blaring over the intercoms. Gwen had a loud voice but with all the surrounding noise she made sure to compensate and in effect was practically yelling at me. We were both taken by surprise when the stranger next to me spoke up in reply to her conundrum.

“Just go get ice cream with Patrick, Jason will get over it.”

He had a big smile on his face as if he were telling us a joke.

I smiled and gave a few chuckles. Gwen was obviously not satisfied with the answer. Gwen relished in the drama and didn’t enjoy this boy making light of it. Gwen replied with a short, “thanks” and turned to explain to the friend on her other side. This harsh response on her end could have left things feeling sour, but Andy’s face had no reaction.

I chuckled again feeling much more comfortable and opened my mouth to speak.

“Gwen is a complicated girl, you made that whole situation too easy.”

“Maybe she should invite Jason to go too.”

I laughed and nodded my head. I was never into drama and for people like Gwen I would listen but never say anything, knowing it would never be sufficient. I heard the dramatic chatter continue and easily tuned it out.

“Well, my name is Blaire. I think we actually had a class together a while back.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Econ 1010. The only reason I know is because you were the smarty pants sitting on the front row.”

He chuckled and looked a little embarrassed but confidently told me the first joke of many to come.

“Smarty pants huh?! You give my pants way too much credit.” Then he started to laugh harder trying to hold back.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, not sure if i should feel insecure or not.

“Imagine my pants standing there with a brain poking out the waist.”

As he tried to help me visualize his actual smarty pants, my laughter bellowed out uncontrollable. It was at that point, all walls and barriers completely fell. I wasn’t interested in the game or the people watching or the friends I came with. Andy had me captivated.

The game ended and people started filing out. I motioned to my friends that I would catch up with them later and he did the same. I smiled as we continued in this fun and silly way. And to think I had had my eye on him since Econ 1010. Think about it, my eye literally on his body! Weird I know, but I can’t help but laugh. Andy has just introduced me to a whole new dimension of funny.

(So the dream in the beginning really happened while we were dating. The story came from my real love for people watching and developing crushes on boys during college. I never met any of them so i thought it would be fun to make it really happen.  Andy and I aren’t “romantics”, i thought it would be funny to write a cheesy romantic story about us but i couldn’t, it's just not us.)