I did want to. And so when we went back to work, I let Jonah work while I wandered around the campus. He made up a bullshit excuse and let me go. I think he was sick of walking me through step-by-step anyway.
I ran into Pastor Kyle again and we talked some more as I helped him copy discussion points for small-group sessions at tomorrow's youth group. He told me Curran had gotten married and that he'd officiated the wedding. I knew that; it was all over Facebook, but I pretended it was the first I'd heard of it. And Alexis, one of the group leaders for the college department, had just gotten engaged, and she and her fiancé were planning to move to California after the wedding.
Jonah made up some complicated excuse to Cynthia about why we had to leave and come back tomorrow, and called his boss, Hank, and told him the same thing. Cynthia agreed readily, nodding up and down very seriously, but it was clear she had no idea what Jonah was saying. Hank seemed to readily accept the excuse and Jonah gave me a thumbs-up. I waved goodbye to Pastor Kyle in the parking lot as we left.
We stopped at Arby's for dinner on the way home, and I drove the rest of the way back. Jonah fell asleep in the passenger seat. At home, he went almost straight to bed. I put his coat on over my coat and crawled out onto the fire escape. Idly, I looked through my phone as my fingers started to freeze around it. I really should have thought to put gloves on, but I didn't feel like going back inside.
I went to a secret folder on my phone where I keep a picture of me and Rob together. There's also one of me and Jonah and one of me and another boyfriend, Matthew. I went out with Matthew briefly in high school. He was a friend of a good friend of mine, and he liked me a lot. I liked him, but not as much as he liked me, and it didn't take long to realize we were better off staying friends-of-friends. That photo was taken on the only date we went on that I enjoyed. It almost wasn't a date, really. We saw a movie together and then met up with a bunch of our friends at a diner. I'm looking past the camera and laughing; Matthew has his arms around my waist and is smiling and kissing me on the cheek. I don't know who took that photo, and I don't remember what made me laugh like that. But we look happy in that photo. If you didn't know, you'd think it was a real relationship.
The photo with me and Jonah features us sitting close together at our spot on top of the abandoned building downtown. My friend Kristin took the photo, and we didn't know it was being taken at the time. You can barely tell, but Jonah and I are holding hands. We're smiling faintly at each other, our foreheads almost touching. He looks like he's in the middle of saying something. I don't remember what. I do remember we'd only been dating for a month or so. Kristin texted me the photo later. Jonah and I have since taken many photos together, but somehow I like that one the best. We are close, and we look somewhat serious, but content.
The one with Rob and me was taken at some function that the youth group was doing. We're in sitting at the end of a very long table. We're sitting across from each other, apparently both laughing at some shared joke. The people in the background are all laughing and having a good time, but all you see is us. It looks like he's reaching for my hand, which is resting on the table, but I remember that he was really reaching for the pepper shaker. Rob liked a lot of pepper on his food. We were about six months into our relationship then, I remember. We look alike. We look like a couple. A couple that has been together for a little while, but secure enough with each other to sit across from each other, and not side-by-side.
I exited out of the folder and went into my contacts. I scrolled down until I found Rob's number. My finger hovered over the "send" button.
Labels: january brings few faces
