Impractically Perfect: A Romantic Comedy Page 7

He smiled, nodded, then walked over to Exam Room 2, where a patient was waiting. I dropped the bottle on Bernard’s desk.

  “Well? What did you think?”

  When I raised my eyebrows, my skin felt a little tight. “Well, my face feels cleaner. But that’s about it.”

  “Would you like to…make a purchase?”

  I crossed my arms. “Seriously, Bernard? I’m not going to…fine. Yes, okay? Put me down for three.”

  It didn’t occur to me until after I had all my bottles neatly placed into my purse that I was almost as good at lying to myself as I was at lying to everyone around me.

  Public transportation in Washington D.C. never failed to stump me. Most of the time it was relatively busy, but empty enough to be somewhat meditative; one could close her eyes and dream about her future or remember her embarrassing past, like that one time she spilled salad dressing all over herself while attempting to make a joke in her university dining hall. Not that that ever happened to me, or anything. I could imagine the world as a different place, one filled with unicorns and Pegasi (or is it Pegasuses?) and where nothing ever went wrong, a place where everyone just walked around all day with ridiculous grins splitting their faces because they were so goddamn happy all the time.

  But during rush hour, public transportation became an entirely different beast. It was survival of the fittest out there, where the short people got run over and smooshed by those tall enough to grab the standing loops in the subway cars.

  It was always incredible to me how the same place, the same mode of transportation, could seem so different depending only on the time of day that I went on it. At 3am on a weekday, the trains were mostly deserted, and depending on who was in the car with me, it was either incredibly peaceful or incredibly terrifying.

  These were the thoughts that occupied my mind as I took one of the last seats on the train heading home. It was a nice, medium busy; I had stayed late to finish up the work that Cyril had abandoned. For some strange reason, I didn’t mind working so late. Perhaps the idea of going home to nothing and no one was worse than being at the office.

  Not that I was lonely or anything.

  The man next to me was wearing jeans and a rather feminine-looking peacoat, and he was manspread so that his left knee kept nudging my right. I had never before said anything to a stranger on the subway, had rarely even nodded to people sitting across the aisle from me, wearing matching faces of The Monday Blues, or whatever day of the week happened to be causing our misery. But this knee was, well, getting to me.

  Before I realized what I was doing, I had nudged him back with my own knee—hard. Honestly, it was a little harder than I had meant to do it, and for a second I almost felt bad for him. I looked into his face for the first time to valiantly stand up for myself by saying something clever along the lines of “Keep your knees to yourself, sir” or “You only paid for ONE seat!”

  He looked into my face and I immediately reddened. Because somehow, completely inexplicably, it was Toby.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Oh!” he said, and I became quite sure he thought I was stalking him. “What a pleasant surprise!” Okay, enough with the sarcasm, mister.

  “I’m um, sorry…did I hurt your knee?”

  He raised his eyebrows at me. Oh my god, he did think I was a stalker. Crap on a cracker. I had to make him understand that this was just a chance encounter. I didn’t even know where he lived! Although, I easily could have found that information, I had access to his medical records…but seriously, I hadn’t even thought about him since taking Mrs. Purrpaws to the vet.

  Okay, that was a lie. I had thought about him a little. But I certainly hadn’t thought I would see him ever again.

  “…I don’t know if that sounds like a good idea to you or whatever, but what do you think?” finished Toby, eyeing me hopefully.

  Wait, what? Dammit. I had done it again. Gotten lost in my thoughts, just like Christopher Columbus had in the ocean when he was searching for India. What did I think about what?

  I swallowed and took a gamble. “It sounds…like a great idea!”

  He smiled. Why was he smiling so much? It was weird. Or at least, could he smile at something else that wasn’t me?

  I mean, it’s not that his smile wasn’t nice. Actually, it was an amazing smile. But him focusing all that energy on me…it just made me sort of uncomfortable? Or maybe it made me feel good. Hmm.

  “Sooo…can I like have your number or something, or…?”

  I froze. Shit. He had been asking me on a date, hadn’t he?

  “I’m so, I’m shit, I’m so sorry, I’m so bad at this,” I said, stumbling over my words and breaking that weirdly intense eye contact. Suddenly, I was very aware that his leg was still pressed against mine. “I actually…kinda have a boyfriend?”

  “Oh! Um, I mean, I’m not sure how that’s relevant…but hey, if that’s important information that you want me to have, then yes, I hear you. You have a boyfriend.”

  “But you wanted my number because…?”

  He looked awfully confused, and I couldn’t blame him. I was confused myself. “I mean, I just thought it was a crazy coincidence that we kept running into each other, and I thought we could maybe be friends. That’s all. It’s fine that you have a boyfriend.”

  Oh my god. What had I been thinking? Did I seriously assume that he was just, like, into me? Like that? When he WASN’T?

  It was really unbelievable what a giant fuck-up I had become.

  And that was when all the lights turned off, we screeched to a halt, and the subway decided it would be fun to break down.

  Chapter Eight

  Scary Doesn’t Mean Fun

  Somewhere, there was a baby crying, although I hadn’t noticed one earlier. The ambient noise was eerily nonexistent, and I felt like I could hear not only my own breathing, but even the pulses of everyone around me.

  Fun fact: I’ve never liked the dark. Like, ever. Now, it had become yet another thing on my list of anxiety triggers. When I was a little kid I would cry if my mom didn’t leave a nightlight on for me. I eventually grew out of it…sort of. At night it was okay, but when you can’t see two feet in front of you on a subway car? It’s a little terrifying.

  Listening to my breathing growing faster, I fumbled for my phone and attempted to turn on the flashlight, but my hands were already sweating too much, and I couldn’t unlock the touchscreen. But I wasn’t going to have a panic attack in here, I wasn’t. Certainly not like this.

  Pocketing my phone, I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes, trying to picture my happy place. Unfortunately, I had never come up with a happy place, so the only things that kept popping up into my mind were scenes from the Final Destination movies, and I quickly became quite positive that we were all going to die.

  Fuck. Fuck. I could feel my heart beating faster and faster, could almost hear it, it was pounding so hard. What a terrible way to go. Not that I was particularly excited about the idea of dying ever, but I always thought it would be at the age of 130, surrounded by my beautiful, perfect, drama-free family, proud of my accomplishments. I really didn’t want to die today, before I got married, before I made an incredible life for myself. Dying before achieving anything would be the worst thing…ever.

  Oh god, oh god, oh god. Why was nothing happening? Why were the lights still out? Why hadn’t they told us what was going on yet?

  Even though the air conditioner had turned off along with the lights and the car was already stuffy and hot as hell, I could feel myself shaking, and goosebumps were coating my arms beneath my winter coat. For some stupid reason, I could feel tears forming behind my eyes. Why wasn’t this over yet?

  “Are you okay?” I heard the whisper coming from my left. Toby. He must have felt me shaking.

  My throat felt like I had swallowed a giant spoonful of peanut butter without having anything to drink, so I just nodded. And then I remembered that he couldn’t actually see me. “Um, yeah, I’m fine!” But my voice broke hal
fway through the sentence. “I mean...I just...don’t - like - being...being trapped - in the dark, and—”

  And then, there was a hand on my right leg. Not a creepy hand; it felt warm and comforting, and I instantly recognized it as Toby’s. He didn’t try to put it up too high, and he didn’t do anything other than rest it gently, letting me know he was there.

  I wasn’t alone in this.

  Before I realized what I was doing, I was grabbing his hand in my own. His hand was huge and strong. His fingers felt rough and calloused, completely different from Sven’s. Sven had perfectly manicured, soft hands. We often joked that he was the one who should be going to the salon, not me.

  Toby didn’t seem to mind my iron grip, or that my nails were definitely digging into his skin. He didn’t mind that we barely knew each other and yet, I had intertwined my fingers between his, his hand grounding me, making me feel safer.

  Around us, people were beginning to talk in hushed voices. “What’s happening?” “Do you think we’ll be stuck down here for a long time?” “I have an appointment to get to, if I miss it, I’m suing.” As I listened, my breathing slowed down, just a bit. Nobody was injured. Everything was going to be okay.

  My hand was soaked with sweat from the heat and my nerves, but Toby still didn’t let go.

  Five minutes later—debatably the longest five minutes of my life—there was a crackly announcement that we would be moving again shortly. It wasn’t exactly shortly, but it didn’t take as long as it could have for the lights to come back on. I felt dizzy and drained, like I had refrained from eating more than an apple and then done an intensive workout class followed by a five mile run. Which was actually a frequent occurrence in my life.

  My heartbeat immediately slowed with the return of the lights. Reddening because I realized I was still holding Toby’s hand, I refused to look him in the eye. I shook off his hand, and noticed that his was covered in fingernail marks. Marks from me.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, crossing my arms tightly in front of me. The subway car finally sprang to life and started slowly moving. Everyone clapped—everyone except me and Toby.

  He frowned, looking at me, and had to yell his words over the din of claps and cheers. “For what?”

  I wanted to get off the subway as fast as possible, because that claustrophobia had kicked in bad. At the next stop, I sprang to my feet and charged for the door, with barely a goodbye to Toby.

  Pounding up the concrete steps, I tried to focus on my breathing. Just get outside…just get outside…

  Just as I reached the top step, someone grabbed my arm from behind, and I whipped around, on edge. Without even looking at the perpetrator, I mustered up my strength and punched him right in the nose.

  It was, of course, Toby, which I realized as soon as my eyes could focus. Crap.

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said, cupping his nose, which was dripping blood all over his peacoat.

  “I mean. I’m good,” I said. “Jesus, I’m so sorry, I—”

  “Hey, no worries. I shoulda known not to grab you when you were so…you know.” He smiled non-judgmentally, and I gratefully returned it. I definitely hadn’t punched him hard enough to break his nose. Already, the bleeding had slowed considerably.

  Toby looked around curiously. “So uh...where are we, exactly?”

  And then, for the first time that day, I laughed. Everything came out in that laugh—all the stress, the emotions I had been feeling for the past few weeks, all of it. Because I had absolutely no fucking idea where we were.

  “Um. I mean, we can just get back on the train…” I said, wringing my hands helplessly, still giggling.

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea for you right now. I don’t need you passing out on me, here. I don’t want that kind of responsibility, Ms. Partridge.”

  Well, he had a point. I was still a little shaky. “I think I need something to eat,” I said practically. “Wanna grab food somewhere?”

  We ended up wandering the streets for awhile—we weren’t exactly in a restaurant-y area, as it turned out. Eventually, we found a little fast food joint called McKinney’s which looked like almost an exact replica of McDonald’s except that the giant “M” was red instead of yellow. It had the same font and everything.

  After ordering two double cheeseburgers apiece and more fries than we could ever eat in our lifetimes, we sat in a sticky booth, facing each other. Normally, I would have found it uncomfortable, being under unflattering florescent lights, but after being stuck in the dark for so long, it was welcome. Even if it was a bit…bright. And probably made my pores even more obvious. Oh, god, why did I choose today to not wear makeup?

  For the first time, it occurred to me to ask him where Toby had even been heading in the first place, and why he wasn’t there now.

  “Oh...” he said, slowly. “It’s nothing. Just a little thing for...work. But it was more important that I made sure you were feeling okay.”

  Guilt immediately rushed through me, and I hoped desperately that I wasn’t going to get him in trouble.

  “Although,” he said, checking his phone, “I should probably make a call...yeah. Oops.”

  He rushed off, while I stuffed an entire handful of fries into my mouth. They were salty and crisp and wonderful, and not for the first time I slightly regretted my normally strict diet regime of carefully portioned salads, spinach smoothies, and fro-yo.

  Honestly, this day was turning out to be pretty bizarre. I didn’t usually impulsively get food with guys I barely knew. Really, I didn’t usually do anything impulsive. Ever. But my day was pretty much thrown to shit anyway, so what was the harm in seeing what happened next, at this point?

  Toby returned a moment later, and raised his eyebrows when he saw that I had nearly finished my entire burger. “I’m impressed,” he said, picking up his own, still uneaten. “I’ve rarely had a girl beat me at hamburgers.”

  Wow. How unladylike was that? So embarrassing! I had been so hungry that I hadn’t even thought about the fact that I was still out with another person—a man, no less. Sure, it wasn’t a date or anything, seeing as I had a boyfriend, and we were at McKinney’s...but he had seen how much I ate. I never even finished an entire meal in front of Sven.

  He grabbed his burger in his left hand, and stuffed the entire thing in his mouth. For one wild second, I was sure I was going to have to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Crap, I thought to myself, how do you even do that? We learned it in fifth grade. Is it different for adults? What about for people who are a lot bigger than you? Should I practice on myself first, like on a chair or something? Maybe I should take a first aid class, just to be safe.

  By this time, Toby had swallowed his burger, and was looking at me expectantly, licking his lips like a cat that had just murdered a sparrow and left it at the feet of her owner.

  “Beat you,” he said. I threw a fry at him. “DON’T WASTE THE FRIES!” He almost ate it off the ground, but I talked him out of it.

  Finally, my blood sugar was feeling back to normal, and after splitting a large Dr. Pepper, no ice, Toby sprung up to use the restroom.

  I noticed that he had left his phone on the plastic laminate table, and it was now buzzing with texts. Inadvertently, I looked at it.

  A girl had texted him. Not that I like, cared or whatever. But the name was “Annabelle” and last time I checked, that was definitely a woman’s name.

  well maybe ill see you sometime or whatever, the text read.

  An inexplicable surge of swirliness raised in my stomach. He was allowed to text girls if he wanted to, right? I mean, of course he was. He wasn’t doing anything wrong.

  Maybe it was me. I probably ate my cheeseburger too fast and was having indigestion. Not my ideal evening, but at least I knew what was causing the feeling in my tummy.

  Nevertheless, I went back to eating my fries. Maybe I thought they would help me digest the burger. Maybe I knew, so secretly and so subconsciously that
I didn’t even realize it, that I wasn’t actually having indigestion at all, and that sick feeling in my stomach was caused by something entirely different.

  I couldn’t help myself. I leaned over and scrolled up on his lock screen, showing a few more texts.

  sorry, the first one read, i dont think i can make it tonite. I hate to cancel last minute but something came up

  It’s okay, Annabelle had replied back, i understand. Maybe we can get together another time?

  Hmm, yeah. Toby’s reply was oddly noncommittal. And then...

  well maybe ill see you sometime or whatever.

  And then I put it all together. Toby was...dressed up, that’s what he was doing in a peacoat. He had been on his way to a date. And by the sounds of it, it wasn’t with a girl who he knew very well.

  It had been actually years since I had been on a date. Even at the beginning of mine and Sven’s relationship, we hadn’t really “dated,” in the proper sense. It was more like we met once, fell desperately in love, and then were together ever since. I had forgotten how terrible being single was. Going out to dinner with people you barely knew?

  Although, come to think of it, that’s kind of what I was doing right now. I barely knew Toby, and we were eating dinner together. I mean, I was wearing my work clothes, and we were eating burgers and fries. But it was still dinner.

  Oh god. This was okay, right? I wasn’t doing anything, like wrong, by going out for dinner, was I? If this was a date, that would mean I was cheating on Sven. Something that I never had any intention of doing, ever, in my life. Sven was my partner for life—I would never hurt him that way.

  Suddenly, I felt terrible. Toby was supposed to be going on a nice date with a nice girl tonight, and instead, in all my patheticness, I had made him feel like he had to take care of me. What was wrong with me?

  Drying his dripping hands on his dark jeans, Toby emerged from the bathroom. At least he washes his hands, I thought to myself, remembering the last argument I had had with Sven.