I went about a half mile past the Trevino house and pulled over onto a side road. I slowly put the car in park and turned off the engine. For a moment, I just stared out the front windshield, but after a minute of that, I adjusted the seat so it was lying nearly flat. I curled up on my side and just started to shake.
I couldn’t have what other people had, so I just gave up.
Time stopped, started again, and then became irrelevant as I lay on my side in the driver’s seat of my car, staring at nothing. My heart thumped rapidly in my chest, and my breaths came in short, labored gasps. For a while, my body shook though that gradually wore off as exhaustion took over.
At some point, it got dark and started to rain.
My breathing had slowed a bit, but my heart was still racing. More than anything, I felt stiff and numb. I was as pathetic as I could possibly be. It was ridiculous to think that I could actually try to have a normal relationship with a girl. Of course her father would want to meet me. I mean, he’d be letting me take his daughter out of town for several hours. What father wouldn’t want to meet the guy she was going to be with?
I couldn’t even go up to the front door.
I couldn’t even park in the driveway.
I couldn’t even stop the car.
Mayra was definitely a very special person, and she deserved the absolute best. That wasn’t me. She deserved to be with someone who wouldn’t freak out on her just because she had an argument in front of him or because she wanted to watch television before doing homework.
I shuddered a little at the thought.
She was worthy of someone who could give her anything and everything, and I couldn’t even offer her a normal date where I go up to the door, shake her father’s hand, call him “sir,” and promise to have his daughter back by midnight, all with a smile on my face. I couldn’t have done any of that.
I reached out haphazardly to flip open the little plastic compartment designed to hold change. Inside was a small blue cap from a water bottle. My dad used to drink bottled water constantly when Mom wasn’t looking. She said it was too expensive, but he claimed it tasted better, so he’d buy bottled water from the vending machine at work and drink it on the way home.
I remembered how he would deftly untwist the cap with one hand and steer with the other. It always scared me when he took one hand off the wheel, but he could do it so fast, I would barely notice. He’d drink the whole thing down and smack his lips when he was done with it. Then he’d forget and leave the little cap inside the car when he took the bottle to the recycling bin at the service station near the house and panic all evening, thinking Mom would find it.
I pulled the cap out with my fingers and gripped it in my fist, thinking of the way my dad would blush and look all guilty when my mom walked by. She knew he was up to something and would purposely do things to make him agitated until he confessed. He’d still do it again the next day.
They always ended up smiling, laughing, and holding each other.
Mayra deserved that, too, and she wasn’t going to get anything like that with me. I wouldn’t be able to joke with her about that sort of stuff, and if she gave me a hard time—even in jest—I’d probably just fall apart like the idiot I was.
I mean, really—what did I have to offer Mayra?
You have a lot to offer…
My father’s voice rang in my head as I remembered a conversation we had when I was about fifteen. We were in the car on our way back from Cincinnati where I had been meeting with a new specialty therapist. I was supposed to be trying out new ways of making conversation with people, and she had told me to pick a topic that was different from the week before and tell someone about it.
“There’s a new girl in my class,” I told my father.
“Oh yeah? What’s her name?” Dad asked me.
“Traci,” I replied.
“Is she prett
y?” Dad looked over at me sideways with a half grin. I shrugged my shoulders in response, but he didn’t let it go. “Well, is she?”
“How should I know?”
“It’s a matter of opinion, son,” he said. “Do you find her physically attractive?”
“I don’t see the point.”
“Human nature,” Dad replied as he turned off the freeway and onto a smaller highway. “We are attracted to those we think might be suitable mates.”
I snorted.
“Is that funny?”