Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
T wo days later, Amaya and Teegan are in an AOPi leadership meeting that Amaya just couldn’t schedule for a weekday, so I’m driving solo out to the small lake on the outskirts of Brooklyn. Arrow has always hosted Lake Games on Labor Day weekend with relays, obstacle courses, races, and a cookout (college students are suckers for free food). It’s a good way to get new students involved, and it’s one of the events that student leaders in Arrow never miss.
I almost didn’t come.
I know it would have been frowned upon by the Arrow staff to just choose not to be there, and I never would have dreamed of disappointing them in the past, especially considering all they had done to help me grow in my faith and my leadership throughout college. However, after my summer volunteering with Mom and spending time in D.C., plus the looming self-imposed deadline for my law school application, I’ve been reevaluating my scheduling priorities.
But then Aaron texted me to ask if I’d be there. Since we still haven’t had a chance to connect, I decided to re-prioritize my schedule after this afternoon.
So here I am, ready to bake in the sun and dodge freshman boys in the name of love. Well, maybe not love. Just like. Strong like. Long-standing like.
I notice Aaron giving instructions to a group at one of the relay races, but I stop myself from walking directly to him. I stop to chat with a crowd of freshman, encouraged when I see Liz with the other two girls from my overly-honest rush week conversation. They wound up in different sororities, but I can tell their friendship is going to last a long time as they share about their experiences.
I excuse myself to grab a sports drink from the coolers and stand up to find Aaron smiling at me. “Hey, I was almost worried you weren’t coming,” he says, grabbing a water bottle.
Buying myself a second to respond as my heart skips a beat, I take a drink. “Yeah, I was thinking about just taking the weekend to get some work done, but I changed my mind at the last minute. Better late than never!” I glance down and see he’s wearing a whistle around his neck. “Oh, I forgot that you were one of the leaders in charge this year. Looks like it’s a success so far from the size of the crowd!”
Aaron grins, and I can picture the crinkles at the sides of his blue eyes behind his sunglasses. “So far, so good!” he says. “We added a couple of new games this year, and I think they’ve gone over well.”
“So, tell me more about your summer!” I pivot.
“It was the best Summer Project ever. We had such a great time,” Aaron says with enthusiasm. “Minus the fact that you weren’t there, of course. So many funny stories you missed out on. But I’m sure you had a good time at home with your family too. And you still need to tell me about what you did in D.C.,” Aaron says while glancing at the time on his phone. “Hey, I need to go kick off this next race, but I really want to talk more sometime soon.”
He grins at me as he backward walks away before turning to the race. Maybe “sometime soon” will finally come—maybe this will be the time he’ll finally ask me out for real instead of waltzing around the periphery of our “are we more than friends?” relationship.
Two hours in the blazing sun and zero conversations with Aaron later, I’m beyond done with this event. I start thinking of everything else I could be accomplishing (also, air conditioning). Deciding to call it a day, I try to sneak to the parking lot without drawing attention to the fact that I’m leaving before the event is over. I’m halfway to my car when I hear Aaron yelling my name.
He jogs up. “Leaving already? Aren’t you going to stay for Duck Duck Loose?”
The culminating event at Lake Games before the cookout is a race in which a guy and a girl pair up in a two-person kayak to collect giant rubber ducks floating around the lake. The guys paddle while the girls reach out to grab the ducks, of course with the occasional capsize. It sounds totally weird, I know.
Really, it’s an excuse for guys and girls to flirt in a social group that kinda sorta mildly discourages flirting.
“Oh, I was going to head back and work on my law school application,” I say as nonchalantly as possible, not wanting to seem overeager. Of course, I’d like the chance to flirt with Aaron in a tandem kayak. Would he “accidentally” tip us over so he could casually rescue me from drowning? A girl can dream.
He’s looking at me expectantly. “I guess I could maybe stay a little longer.”
“Awesome. There are a couple of freshman guys who want to participate but don’t have partners. I can pair you up with one of them,” Aaron says.
My heart turns into a brick. My brain is working overtime to squelch the burning sensation behind my eyeballs, and I extra regret forgetting my sunglasses. I’m sternly telling my face not to project what I’m feeling to Aaron, but now his brow is furrowing. C urse you, face that never learned to play poker!
I pretend to look at the time on my watch.
“You know, I should head out and try to get a little bit done,” I manage to squeak out. “You should probably go get the race started because I’m going to just go, um, yeah, just leaving. ”
Apparently, my words also need to learn to play poker.
I turn away and awkwardly speed walk toward my car. I yank the driver’s door open, ready to slam myself inside and possibly unleash a scream.
“Lana?”
I’m startled to see Mateo Alvarez, the shining star athlete of Townsend, standing by the front of my car. Where did he come from? Does he have ninja skills in addition to soccer skills, or was blood rushing so loudly in my ears that I just didn’t hear him approach?
“You’re not staying for the partner race? I can see people getting into kayaks,” Mateo says.
“No, yeah no, I was just leaving. Aaron just asked me if I was staying and I thought he was asking me to do the race with him but he just wanted to pair me up with some freshman guy and really the last thing I want today is to do a relay with some awkward freshman and pretend to have fun so I decided I’m not staying.” My eyes go a little wide as I realize how nutty that just sounded. I word-vomited ugly chunks onto one of the smoothest guys involved with Arrow. I just can’t stop winning today.
I move to get in my car. Mateo’s hand grabs the door before I can close it. He leans down to look at me and says, “Wait—will you be my partner?”
I stare blankly for a moment before a very articulate “Huh?” escapes.
“Stay and do the race with me. As my partner.” Mateo gives me a one-sided smile. “Please?”
My mind is trying to figure out how to turn down this pity offer in a dignified way. It’s not like Mateo and I aren’t friends—we’ve been attending all the same Arrow weekly meetings and student leader trainings since we were sophomores. But I wouldn’t expect him to choose me as his partner for the race. I’m sure there are plenty of girls ready and waiting for the chance. As my brain continues scrambling for a response, I feel heat creeping up my neck to my cheeks. I hope Mateo just thinks it’s from the sun. “Yeah, okay,” suddenly slips out of my mouth. I mentally face-palm myself.
I get out of the car and follow Mateo back to the Lake Games, where the other pairs are lining up for the race. I keep my head down to avoid looking at Aaron, not trusting my dumb face to behave itself. He’s already in a kayak and not paying attention anyway.
We don our life jackets and climb into the kayak. I must be hallucinating, because when I glance back at him, Mateo looks awfully pale—almost uncomfortable. Which doesn’t make sense because he’s a star athlete in super fit condition. Paddling a kayak can’t possibly be challenging for him.
The bullhorn signals the start of the race, and all the other pairs take off in a rush with lots of squeals from the girls and splashing by the guys. We push off the shore quickly, but then our kayak noticeably slows, barely gliding forward as Mateo slowly dips the paddle in the lake. Hmmm, maybe he has a strategy of letting the other kayaks clear out of the way?
We’ve made it forward several meters but also mostly veered to one side when I peer back at Mateo again. “Everything okay back there? Is there a secret winning strategy that I should know about? Are we heading for the edges to catch the ducks that other people miss?”
His face is definitely pale now. Deathly white, which is saying a lot for a man of Latino heritage who just spent all summer at the beach. He also seems to be breathing a lot faster than would make sense for the physical effort he has exerted thus far.
“I, um, I’ve never kayaked before,” Mateo says. “I haven’t really been on a lake in a long time.”
“Really?” I ask, a bit bewildered. “You’ve never participated in the games? Or come out with your soccer teammates to spend a day on the lake? How have you been at Townsend for three years and never been out on the lake?”
He’s breathing shallowly but manages to whisper, “I’m sort of afraid of deep water.”
I carefully swivel in my kayak seat so I can face him without tipping us over. Who really cares about rubber ducks anyway? Particularly when your rowing mate is on the verge of a panic attack.
“Hey, it’s fine, Mateo,” I say calmly. “It’s just you and me in a sturdy, non-sinking kayak. I won’t do anything to make it tip over, okay?”
He swallows. I’m sure people back on shore are bewildered as to what’s going on and why the most popular athlete on campus isn’t dominating an athletic competition.
“It’s just, when I was young, I was at an aquarium with this older kid in the neighborhood, and, uh, he teased me that one of the really creepy fish was probably caught out of the local lake we always swam in.” He closes his eyes and pauses, as if picturing that aquarium fish again. “Ah, ever since then I’ve just been, well, kinda terrified thinking about what could possibly be swimming below the surface.”
“You know what? I don’t really like lakes all that much myself,” I say quietly, trying to use the soothing voice I heard my mom use with scared clients over the summer. “Hey, just look into my eyes, okay? Don’t look down in the water.” He slowly opens his eyes and meets my gaze. I take a deep breath and he mimics me. “Keep your eyes on the horizon, and let’s paddle back to shore.”
His breathing is evening out and color returning to his face. “But the competition—I don’t want to disappoint you,” he eventually says.
“Mateo, I was literally about to leave,” I say with a small laugh. “I honestly don’t care. Let’s get on solid ground.”
He slowly urges the kayak back to shore, away from where the main crowd is standing. We climb out, and I make up excuses to a few curious bystanders. Thankfully, the bullhorn ending the race has sounded, and everyone else is on shore cheering the teams returning to tally up their rubber ducks. No one is even watching as we walk away from the water’s edge.
“Thanks for that back there,” Mateo says. “I’m sorry I froze up. I didn’t realize it would be such a big deal until I got out there and looked down.”
“It’s really fine, I promise,” I reassure him. “Anyway, I think I’m going to duck out of all this chaos.”
“Pun intended?” Mateo asks with a small smile. I laugh. “I’ll walk you to your car. It’s the least I could do after that embarrassment!”
I laugh again and tip my head toward the parking lot. Mateo falls into step beside me. “I heard you got to spend a few weeks in D.C. this summer advocating for the Afghan Adjustment Act,” he says.
My feet skip a step, so caught off guard that he would know that. “Yeah, I did. I don’t know that I made much of an impact, but it was a great learning experience.”
“Well, every voice helps. It’s important legislation that’s long overdue,” he says matter-of-factly. “I’m glad it was reintroduced to Congress. Hopefully they pass it soon.”
I glance over at him out of the corner of my eye. “I, um, I didn’t know that you were interested in the AAA,” I admit. I see him glance back at me through the corner of his eye. “I just mean, not many people in Arrow really know anything about it.”
“My parents emigrated from Guatemala,” Mateo shares. “I’m first-generation American-born, so I like to stay at least somewhat informed about immigration issues.”
I’m just digesting this surprising information when Mateo one-ups his surprises. “Lana, can I take you to coffee tomorrow afternoon? Maybe Bookafe at two o’clock?”
Now I skip all the steps and come to a standstill. Mateo backtracks until he’s beside me, peering down at my blank face. My brain is going to be fired after malfunctioning so epically today. I’m just staring at Mateo, forgetting how to speak or breathe, when he repeats the question. “Lana, I’d like to take you to coffee tomorrow. Bookafe at two? Will you meet me there?”
My thoughts are still confused, but I manage to force out words that sound something like, “Uh yeah, sure, yep, coffee is good. I like coffee.”
Half of Mateo’s mouth upturns in a smile as he says, “I know you do. I’ll see you tomorrow at two.”
He opens my car door for me—wait, when did we start walking again and arrive at my car? Also, did I leave it unlocked? I look down at the keys in my hand and realize that at some point I clicked the unlock button without my brain even computing that I was doing it.
I nod once at Mateo and slide into the driver’s seat. He smiles one more time before closing the door with a wave. I push the ignition and crank the AC all the way up.
I leave the parking lot but don’t head straight back to AOPi, instead opting to drive around with the air conditioning and my thoughts on full blast.
The cool air returns my brain temperature to normal, and I take a breath. Surely Mateo just wants to get coffee to talk more about my time in D.C. and the Afghan Adjustment Act, right? He brought it up, but then we didn’t have a chance to really talk about it since I was eager to leave. It would be great to have a conversation about immigration policy with someone who seems somewhat informed. There aren’t very many of those people hanging around Arrow.
With that surprise mentally settled, I’m left to stew over Aaron’s surprise rejection. I’m so confused why he would keep sending me signals that he wants to talk, then make me think he wants to be my partner, but pair me up with some random freshman instead?
“Make it make sense!” I yell out loud as I park my car outside AOPi and rest my forehead on the steering wheel.
Why does Aaron have to keep playing his cards so close to his chest? How long are we going to keep trudging through these murky super-friends waters?
Is this it? Should I just wash my hands of Aaron ?
I sigh out a groan. If there was ever going to be a breaking point in my crush on Aaron…this just might be it.