A Stef in the Right Direction: Chapter 2

Stephanie never expected her unassuming, long-distance virtual boyfriend Timothy to just show up unannounced, especially since they had an entire ocean between them. But he was in her city now, whether she was ready for it or not, and she would have to figure out what she really wanted in life… among other things like kissing, flirting, and what not to wear on dates.

Click here to read Chapter 1.

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I refused to log into DateMe that morning, although I didn’t know what I actually dreaded: Timothy asking where I was and why I didn’t come out to see him, or Timothy not saying anything because that wasn’t really him earlier. I didn’t even take my phone out of my bag. I just left it inside its pouch like it was something dangerous and radioactive.

I didn’t even realize I was just refreshing my email page repeatedly until someone drawled, “Stef, you really should stop raping the refresh button. You’re hurting its feelings.”

I snapped out of my distracted state, at least for a moment, and looked up to see one of my least favorite people in the office, Louie, taking a peek into my cubicle. He did that a lot, because he was a slacker and he didn’t take his job as seriously as I did. I mean, why else was he still not a manager when he’d been in the company far longer than I was?

“Someone’s even grumpier than usual today.”

I sighed. “What do you want, Lou?”

He grinned, and I hated that grin, because he usually reserved it for people who were in trouble. And I suddenly felt like I was missing something… not the soap I was supposed to buy last night, but something else. Something important. I refreshed my browser yet again and dove into my email frantically, just as Louie went, “Tick, tock,” in a singsong voice. I hated that, and I hated him.

That was when it hit me.

“Oh my gosh.”

He whistled. “You better run along now, Alice.”

I scowled. “It’s Stef.”

He chuckled, looking at me with amusement, like I had something on my face.

—

“I can’t believe I almost missed that meeting!” I declared a little too theatrically, banging my forehead against the tabletop

Andrea didn’t bother to stop me. She sat across the table, sipping some form of fruit-veggie shake that was supposed to help keep her in shape for her wedding. Which I totally didn’t get, because she was already tiny. What was she trying to do, fit into the flower girl’s dress? She should be out buying push-up bras and stuffing socks into them.

Not that I was going to tell her that.

“That’s not like you,” Andrea pointed out. As if I didn’t realize that. “What’s going on, Stef?”

I wasn’t sure I was ready to tell her. Andrea often faulted me for that. I usually told her things once they were over and well way into my past for them to hurt me. Like this guy I secretly pined for in college. Andrea and I were inseparable then, but somehow I still found the time to covertly catch a glimpse of him and feed the butterflies in my stomach on a scheduled basis. But he broke my heart. I caught him kissing his girlfriend. So I nursed my broken heart in secret for five years, and when I could already think of him without breaking down, I told Andrea. She wasn’t exactly happy to find out about it so late, or that it took me five years to get over a guy I couldn’t even have in the first place because we all knew he had a longtime girlfriend. But she had a boyfriend, so it was natural for her to be patronizing us NBSB types.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“No, really, what’s going on?” Andrea insisted, looking absolutely concerned. I was debating whether I was going to tell her about the episode with Timothy or not, when she pointed out (very worriedly, like it was a matter of life and death), “Your socks don’t match.”

I froze like I was just handed a death sentence.

She ducked under the table to double-check, and came back up nodding. She looked like someone just died. “Yeah. You’re wearing your black sporty ankle sock on the left, and your hot pink Hello Kitty night sock on the right. Your slacks are kinda shorter than standard issue, too, so they kind of sail above your shoes and don’t help hide the mess underneath.” She grimaced. Or was she trying not to laugh? “It’s really unfashionable, and not the kind of mistake you should make. Like, ever.”

I was absolutely mortified. It was one thing to come to work with mismatched socks, but another thing entirely to come to work with mismatched socks when you’re one of the bosses meeting with even bigger bosses. I frantically tried to rewind my memories, all the way back to the big meeting, hoping for some reassurance that the crazy socks didn’t show up unannounced. But of course I couldn’t see anything of that sort, because my memories were from my point of view and I definitely did not have the time to look down at my feet.

Andrea’s voice snapped me back to reality, but to my chagrin she wasn’t talking to me. Apparently she’d flagged down a passing teammate like a taxi, and was now narrating something in her usual booming, no-holds-barred voice. “It was the weekend before our high school senior year finals, and Stef was running for valedictorian, so naturally she was studying like crazy. I couldn’t get her to come to my place, so I went over to hers, and when I arrived she was on the phone with this guy from our school choir. They were supposed to sing for a mass that day, but she refused to leave her house because she had to focus on her exam preparations. She felt bad for blowing the poor guy off though, I mean, they were kind of dating, so later on she texted him, ‘I’m really sorry darling, I’ll make it up to you after finals, I promise. I love you.’ But he never replied.”

I felt myself sinking deeper into my seat, if that was even possible to do with a monobloc chair. I knew that story. And to make matters worse, Andrea’s voice had attracted an even larger audience. Her entire team had us surrounded.

“She ended up texting him the whole weekend. She asked him if he was mad at her, how’d the event go, was he busy, what else was he doing, was he mad at her, why wouldn’t he reply, was he seeing someone else, couldn’t he forgive her… and all other cheesy, lovey-dovey stuff. Emojis and all.” I was sure Andrea would show them the text messages if she had them. Some friend she was. “On Monday morning, she was late. I was surprised, because she’s Stef, and Stef’s never late. And most especially not for first period, since it was Music and our teacher was Mr. Alviar, the school choir adviser and her favorite teacher. He was like, the epitome of all that was good and noble and honorable in the world. And he was married, with a really pretty wife and two adorable kids, and he attended mass religiously. He was a darling.”

It was like being in the front seat of a speeding car that was right about to crash into a large flaming truck, and explode. I braced myself for impact.

“So she went up to the teacher’s table to get her testpaper, and the whole room was really quiet, and Mr. Alviar smiled at her and said… ‘Don’t worry, I’m not mad at you hon. I love you too.’”

OH. MY. GOSH. (Mr. Alviar taught me never to use the Lord’s name in vain.)

It was high school all over again. It was like I was pulled back in time, to that particular moment, and the laughter I heard all around me once more made me feel very small. Unfortunately for me, by the time they stood in line for the flag-raising ceremony that morning, the entire class had already known about the texting fiasco. So Mr. Alviar delivered the punchline, and boom! They all got the reference. Apparently Vincent (the aforementioned choir boy) took offense that I readily gave away my I love yous, and announced it to the whole school or something. So I was not only embarrassed in front of my classmates, I also lost my first love and almost-boyfriend.

“Hey, that’s not what happened!” I finally managed to croak. I could feel my cheeks burning. I think I could cook eggs on them if I wanted to, and they’d be perfect little sunny side ups.

Now Andrea was really laughing. “It so is! You don’t just forget things. Why do you think I always sat beside you in school? When you do, there’s usually some crazy, mind-blowing, life-changing thing going on with you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that one of the boys you’re getting googly-eyed with on DateMe flew in to surprise you, showed up at your apartment totally unannounced with a bouquet of flowers and threw rocks at your window, saying that he’s just a boy standing in front of a girl asking her to marry—”

I was probably a few seconds too late, but I yanked Andrea off her seat and dragged her to the fire exit.

“How did you know?” I hissed.

She looked dazed. “What do you mean, how did I…“ And then it was gone. Realization dawned on her face, while dread took over mine. “OH!”

She didn’t know, and I just gave myself away. Stupid, stupid, stupid Stef!

But before I could bang my head against the wall in frustration and despair, Andrea grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me. “OMG. Is he really here? Who is it? Which one of them? Did he really fly all the way from the US, or are we talking about the British guy or the Frenchman or the Latino? OMG, Stef! No wonder your socks don’t match! So what did he do? What did you do?”

She wouldn’t stop shaking me, so I told her about Timothy. And that I ran.

She looked disappointed. “So that’s it? He travels a thousand miles, and you don’t even come out to say hello?”

I sighed. My cowardice was already gnawing on my insides. She really didn’t have to say it out loud. “Oh, I don’t really know what to do, Andrea. I never expected anything like this. Well, I did hope that one of them might turn out to be interested in me and wanted to meet up, but I never thought it was going to be so soon and it was going to be anything like this. Like, this guy actually came! But what if we don’t work out? Or what if I get pregnant? I don’t think I’m ready, I only have so much and you know how expensive private schools are nowadays, how am I going to support our child and what if she wants to be a ballerina—“

Andrea was frantically snapping her fingers in front of my face, interrupting me. “Get a grip, girl! First things first: you’re panicking, so you need to relax and collect yourself. Or else you’ll make mistakes even worse than mismatched socks.”

I didn’t even realize how fast I was talking and how shallow I was breathing until she started doing breathing exercises, which I unconsciously followed. “Okay. You’re right.” I took another deep breath. “I need to relax.”

“Yup. Take the rest of the day off. We should go shopping!”

“Shopping? Seriously, Andrea?” I shook my head. “You know I can’t. I still have so much to do.”

“Oh yes you can. If you’re sick.”

“But I’m not sick—“

Andrea punched me.

I totally did not see that coming. And she must’ve punched me pretty hard, because the next thing I knew, I had my back against the wall, struggling to stay on my feet and cradling my stomach and resisting the urge to howl in agony. Or maybe my pain tolerance was just low.

Andrea winked at me. “White belter, remember?”

And to my horror, she opened the door to the cafeteria and shouted, “HELP!”