Chapter 18: “Thank you.”

“Why did you suddenly wanna take me on a date?” I ask Andrew as he opened his car gate for me.

It has been almost a week since I helped him at the diner, and since then he has opened up a lot more than before. He has now been sending me ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good night’ texts regularly and talking and meeting up with me whenever he can.

It was always refreshing to spend time with him. He was so different from the people around me or from the people I used to hang out with. Nonetheless I sometimes looked forward to it.

“I want to take you to a place which is very special to me,” He replied, getting in the car and starting it without meeting my eyes. This wasn’t like him, being so unenthusiastic that is. Usually he would be happy and energetic with his signature hint of bashfulness.

I understand that it might still be too early for me to know each and every side of him, but I had figured out a few common traits which helped me to guess what might be on his mind.

And so, I asked him, “Hey, are you alright? Is there something else I should know?” It seemed that he was very nervous for some reason as he constantly ruffled his hair, a nervous habit of his which I had taken note of.

“The place I am taking you today is related to my past. You will be the first person to know about it, I trust you enough to let you know,” He said while giving me a small sad smile presumably thinking about it.

It seemed like he didn’t want to talk about it before reaching there, he possibly needed time and patience so I simply responded while placing a hand on his shoulder, “Thank you.”

I was thankful indeed partly because it meant I succeeded in step two of my plan and partly because it spread through me a sudden unwanted warmth.

It felt nice to have someone trust you. I know that Blu and Denise always place their trust in me and also my parents and Charlie but that’s it. These are the people who I have known all my life but for a shy and closed off person like him to trust me with something, suddenly seemed like a big deal.

He appeared to relax at that and focused his blue eyes back on the road.

The sun was shining warmly through the open window as I let the pleasant July breeze sweep my hair away from my face. The sky was a perfect shade of light blue with fluffy white clouds forming different shapes in the sky.

There was one which weirdly looked like an elephant which was Charlie’s favorite animal that instantly made me remember the day in the diner when I last met him.

After that small moment Andrew and I had, he let me get off work and have dinner with Charlie who immediately invited him to have dinner with us as well.

The three of us had dinner and surprisingly he had hit it off with Charlie too.

There, predictably, Charlie passionately went on and on about how elephants being such humble animals didn’t deserve the cruelty that man has been inflicting on them and when he received an impressive answer from Andrew on how important it was to save the endangered Asian elephants, he threw me a smile which screamed, “I like this guy.”

He had later told me to think through my decision again as he felt that Andrew was genuinely a good guy who didn’t deserve what was going to happen to him.

I don’t know what caused him to say that maybe the elephant’s talk helped Andrew gain some points but Charlie claimed that only a guy can know a guy’s real motives and so he knows what he is talking about.

Which to me sounds bullshit but I agreed with him anyway since he wouldn’t shut up.

Ever since then I have been having trouble contemplating whether my affections for him were fake or not.

He made it difficult for me to find faults in his actions, attitude or manners as he always put my needs before his.

There have been several situations where I have compared Andrew’s actions to Alex and before I can come to a conclusion, I become depressed thinking about him. So, I have stopped comparing him with any of my exes.

I have just come to a conclusion that he is a genuinely good and caring guy.

I should probably stop thinking about his goodness or it will weaken my resolve.

And I can’t let that happen after coming so far along.

As if sensing my inner turmoil at something, I felt his soft hands envelope one of my palms in his which instinctively caused me to turn towards him.

He said nothing just kept driving ahead completely focused but his thumb kept tracing patterns on my skin.

Why does he make it so hard for someone to not care about him when he does that the whole time!

Knowing that he probably needs comfort much more than me and feeling guilty at my train of thoughts I take his hand and lean down to kiss the top of it and rest my face into his palms.

“I am fine, everything will be fine,” I mumble against it and interlock our fingers back together placing it on my thigh.

But will it be?

He nods his head and lets out a sigh still keeping to himself.

It takes me back to when he was shy and reserved always fumbling with his words besides that onetime at the club.

That was probably the alcohol speaking.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I always had this question as to why was he so reserved and how did he survive staying so innocent?

I guess I’ll receive all my answers today.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Illustris ❤