Snippet #2084832

Alec wasn't so sure about his decision to, for all intents and purposes, drag Destin away from her, um, friend, but as they were already halfway back to the house, he figured he might as well keep walking. He veered a little to the left, still keeping a wide berth from the rest of the crowd, and settled on a quiet-ish spot towards the outer edge of the grass. Destin's fingers were still intertwined with his, and he took this as a good sign. I mean, she was okay with it, right? She must be, or she would've pulled away by now...right?

Was it weird that he just liked holding her hand? He liked her fingers, which were longer and bonier than the rest of her, but in a good way. He liked the firm warmth of her palm, and the faint calluses formed from gripping bats and throwing softballs. He liked the way she held his hand back, gripping his palm as though it meant something. Or maybe he was just reading way too much into things, as he always did.

The problem was: he really liked Destin. Really liked her. This was a problem, of course, because Alec was Alec and Destin was Destin. One need only review their high school history to see why things would not/could not/should not work. They were opposites in athletics, academics, social standing- everything. They look petty on paper, these labels and categories, but you'd be surprised by the power they have over you after you've lived with them for 18 plus years. It shouldn't have mattered at this point, how different they used to be, or still were, but it did. It mattered a lot.

You see, Alec had tried with Destin before. Well, almost tried. In their long days at the library, Alec had developed something of a crush on Destin. He liked tutoring (he could have talked about gravitational symmetry for hours), but he particularly liked tutoring Destin. He had loved every minute spent in the dusty back corner of the library, trudging through chapter upon chapter of notes and sneaking in personal questions in between. He made her laugh when she was discouraged, listened to her when she needed to talk, made her try again when she was frustrated...he had wanted to be there for her. One day, when she had done particularly well on a quiz, she had run into the library and thrown her arms around him, proclaiming she couldn't have done it without him. Careful and cautious as Alec was in social situations (and romantic ones in particular), he couldn't help but be excited by this. Senior prom was two weeks away, and he got it in his head to ask her to go with him. Ya know, like, a date and stuff. :3 It had taken him awhile to get up the courage, but he had finally taken the plunge and bought her a bouquet of daisies and poppies (two of her favorites), to do it properly. He had intended to do it Friday afternoon after their tutoring session, but Friday morning Destin herself had cheerfully told him she had accepted an invitation to prom, and he had hastily tossed his flowers into a trash can and tried to forget the whole thing.

He wasn't crushed, exactly, but he did recall being rather put out for the next couple tutoring sessions and being somewhat stand-offish when asked about his own plans for prom. (For the record, he did end up going with a very nice girl from his calculus class, except that halfway through the night she had insisted they drive to a bar she knew to do Jell-O shots and also smoke some "rad dope". That was the end of that relationship.)

Long story short, he wasn't entirely sure where he stood with Destin, and didn't want to push it. Apparently Destin wasn't too sure where they stood, either, because she then asked "If we're not home-running, or sitting on benches...then what are we doing, exactly?" And that...that was an excellent question. She was teasing, he could tell, but she did seem to want an answer. The "sitting on benches" didn't seem to be something to take literally, and with his amaz-za-zing analytical skills he figured he could deduce the meaning of "home running". The answer that came immediately to mind was "Whatever you want to be doing", but that seemed weak, and also sort of forward and/or weird.

"We're..." come on, Alec, don't screw this up, "getting to know each other again. I'm…" spit it out, man! "I'm really glad you're here tonight, Destin." There, that was as far as he could go. He wanted to put himself out there; he wanted to look her straight in the eye and say "Destinie Whittaker, I like you. I like you a lot. Hell, I might even love you." But he couldn't do it. This was not the sort of thing that Alec was capable of. If he had tried to tell her exactly how much he liked her, there's a good chance he would've passed out on the lawn.