I didn’t want to be late, so I jogged to my locker and threw the evil blister shoes in quickly. I walked barefooted for a few steps with my backpack pulled around in front of me so I could yank out my Converses. I bent down to slip my thumb in the heel of the first one to fit it to my foot, and as I was tilted, head through knees, I saw Reed walking towards me, a grin on his face.
Oh no.
“Now I know you’re trying to get knocked over and injured,” he chuckled. “Maybe we could just blindfold you and let you walk around campus aimlessly.”
Trying to laugh him off, I threw my head straight and flung my hair up as I stood up. “Actually, this is injury prevention,” I explained. “My feet aren’t made for girly shoes it seems, so my classics are coming out of retirement for an appearance.” Grabbing the second shoe from my backpack, I tossed it in the air a little, trying to make it flip over in my hand. Unfortunately, I was distracted by this entire encounter, and when I went to catch the shoe, it bounded off my palm and flipped end over end down the walkway, over a ditch, coming to rest in a drainage pile of dirt and leaves. Embarrassed, I hopped with one foot down the small hill to retrieve it. My backpack slid down my shoulder and fell from my wrist.
“Hang on, I got this,” Reed said, lifting my backpack up for me.
“Thanks,” I said over my shoulder then turning, red-faced, to my shoe now covered in grass and tree debris. I shook it off, threw it back down and pushed my foot inside. I wanted to find a way to disappear, rewind time, come up with some clever thing to say, but I had nothing.
I shyly turned back around, and Reed was right there next to me.
“Here you go,” he said, handing me my pack. “Where you headed?”
“Science,” I said, deciding one-word answers were probably my best move.
“Hey, me, too. I’ll walk with you,” he said.
Oh god.
“I’m Reed, by the way,” he said, tilting his head to the side as we walked, his eyebrows raised clearly waiting for my response.
“Oh yeah, I know,” I said. Silence. I couldn’t seem to keep this conversation rolling and the pause between our words was becoming increasingly awkward. Finally, not able to handle it, I had to fill the space.
“My brother played football here and for Southern Arizona, so I’m sort of in on the football scouting,” I said. There, take that! Reed looked at me with a crooked smile, the sort of smirk that either said ‘this girl’s a freak’ or ‘cool, she gets football.’
“Yeah, I guess I have a hard time being anonymous,” he said, staring me in the eyes like he was willing me to add something. I just shook my head, smiled and raised my shoulders a bit.
“Like you, for example, are sort of anonymous… at least… I don’t know your name?” he sort of asked. Crap, that’s right. I didn’t reciprocate the introductions. I’m a nimrod.
“Oh, right. I’m…(I paused for a moment, remembering the last time I heard him discussing my name with someone). I’m Nolan,” I said, sort of scrunching my face a little, like I was saying something disappointing. I have no idea why I was making this face, but my body was full of anxiety. My hands and feet felt as if they were going numb, my stomach rolling over. Oh please oh please don’t bring up the conversation you had about my boy name and my boy clothes and my being nothing like a girlfriend ever. Please oh please.
Reed jumped back a step while we were walking. He had put two and two together. My only hope was that he would pretend as if he’d never seen me before. Fake it, just for pleasantries.
“That’s right. I think I ran into you during practice drills the other day,” he was short. I think he wasn’t sure where to go from there, but I was fine ending it with that. I didn’t want to go into the details. Let’s just erase that moment from time.
“So why Nolan?” he asked.
“Why what?” I was confused by his question.
“I mean, why did your parents name you Nolan?” he clarified, with a bit of a laugh. Again, I am an idiot. Good grief he was charming. I almost let my mind drift to doodling my name with his last name on a notebook and giggling with my girlfriends about him, me and our future babies… but then I couldn’t get the sound of his less charming laugh out of my head, the one that was sparked by the conversation about how absolutely unattractive I was.
I was suddenly glad he asked about my name. I actually liked telling this story, and I thought I could stretch it for the rest of our walk across campus to our class. “Well, my parents were pretty sure I was going to be a boy. The doctor said it wasn’t 100-percent conclusive, but he was pretty confident… Anyways, my dad’s a huge baseball fan, and after much debate with my mom, who preferred the more traditional names, he talked her into naming their second child after Nolan Ryan… you know, the pitcher?” I paused to look at him to make sure he was following me…