Let Me In

If there was something I loved about being an editor it would have to be that as long as you did your hours, read and edited your drafts and submitted them before the deadline, there was no need to be in the office. There were only seven days a month that you were required to be there: inspection days and meetings which rarely happened really.

I woke up at around ten thirty and allowed myself to read a couple of chapters of the Game of Thrones series before actually having to move from the bed. I’d cooked a lot during the past week and so it was time to eat like my aunt Debbie used to say ‘A La Carte’. That’s supposed to be French for something along the lines of ‘From the Menu’ she’d always say.

I had four different choices: Chicken Curry, Ragu meat, a mix of steamed brocoli with zucchini and mushrooms with Rice and a salad, or beef steaks with mashed potatoes. I knew that none of those were breakfast foods but I was too tired to cook and so I took the chicken and heated it up whilst I set the table and got some juice out of the pantry.

I took my laptop and began to look at the office’s upload page and sent the next three assignments and downloaded the ones due next month. I was very quick at reading drafts and much better at editing them. Writing was my number one passion and editing gave me an opportunity to work in that industry in a more behind-the-scenes way.

There were three scripts I had to read this month and out of the three, there was only one that looked promising. It was about a group of people who are chosen to save the world or something like that but in a non-magic way. They are just regular street people who happen to be good at something. I couldn’t deduce much from the title and description but I liked when people didn’t have to be special or have super powers to help out. I marked that one as the first one I’d read, then opened up Netflix and kept watching ‘Sense 8’ my current guilty pleasure.
In that process, my morning went by really fast and so I decided to head to the GYM and get rid of the stress that work had given me throughout these past two weeks. Normally I would ask Lisa to come with me but she was really behind schedule since her brother had to get surgery and she took a medical-leave last month, and so I headed on my own.

The GYM usually allowed me to clear up my head and gather my thoughts properly and at the moment that’s exactly what I needed. Everything that had been going on with Mike was very confusing and I couldn’t understand how I’d gotten into this situation. It had been a little over a week since I’d last seen Mike but we’d kept in touch over text. I was usually a terrible texter and I apologized for that countless times, however he didn’t seem to mind. I guess I was trying to find ways to avoid facing the fact that I was developing certain feelings about him - unknown feelings - and I wasn’t ready to admit that to myself, much less anyone else. At first he was just some guy who wanted to screw me, a guy I blew off who came back and now I was starting to have all these thoughts about him; and the worst part was that I thought he had feelings for me too, but I couldn’t be certain. That drove me nuts.I got onto the treadmill and began to run in order to shake Mike from my mind and focus on anything else but ten minutes later, I received a text from none other than Mike Fuentes.

Mike: Hey are you busy?

Me: I’m at the GYM

No later than two minutes after I sent him that text, I got a call from him.

“Hey!”

“Uhm hello” I responded trying not to run out of breath.

“You said you weren’t busy,”

“No I said I was at the GYM,”

“Same thing,” he joked making me laugh a little “Okay now that we’ve broken the glass without the small talk, we got invited to perform in Las Vegas in two weeks, and we’re planning to stop by the Grand Canyon as well on our way back,” he said as if he was updating me or something. I didn’t really understand.

“Well that’s cool,” I said trying to sound as normal as possible.

“So yeah, you should probably pack some comfortable shoes because we won’t be going anywhere fancy.” he added and I had to stop the treadmill because my legs could barely move with the shock. “Oh and something warm. I heard the canyon gets a little cold at night,”

“Wait what?” was all that managed to come out of my mouth.

“I said, it gets cold at night so you should bring something warm, Jeez for someone who’s so smart you definitely have hearing issues,” he continued clearly misinterpreting my words.

“Who says you’re gonna wanna hang out with me in two weeks time?”

“You’ve too many secrets under your sleeve to ever get tired of you,”

“Well, who said I’m gonna go?”

“Oh, I’m not giving you an option,” by then I had to stop the treadmill and gain some air because I was utterly confused. A part of me wondered if he was just messing with me or maybe I was just imagining this all in my head because it was too unlikely that I’d get a call like this. But then again, he was a drummer so I knew the situation itself was very likely.

“So you’re going to take me and cross state borders without my permission? because last time I checked that’s called kidnapping…” I heard his laugh on the other side of the line.

“Oh c’mon Sarah just say yes!”

Was I really going to agree to this crazy plan? I barely knew the guy! No, that’s not even the best reason to not go. The guy was a player! Who knew what his real intentions deep inside were! All I knew was that I was slowly beginning to feel attracted to him - like a magnet, almost - and no matter how strong my attempts at staying away had been, I always found myself thinking about him or worse: drawn towards him.

“Fine,” I finally said, giving up and ignoring the obvious reasons why I shouldn’t and following the impulsive feelings that had surfaced. He cheered victoriously from the other side of the line and rambled about how great of a decision I had made as well as a vague plan of things we’d be doing however I was too distracted with the counteracting emotions that fought in my head.
“Hey, I’m really glad you’re coming along,” he muttered in a soft voice that interrupted the chaos that dominated my mind; I couldn’t help but smile at his tone of voice: it sounded so happy.

“Like you said, I have no choice,”

“That’s true,”

There was a silence in the line for a couple of seconds; it wasn’t an awkward silence though. It was more like a strangely comfortable silence that signified the fact that we were both there in each other’s company however nothing needed to be said.

“Hey, what are you doing on Saturday?” he asked, breaking the silence; it was Wednesday so I truly had no idea what I would be doing tomorrow much less three days from now.

“Not sure, nothing I guess, why?”

“Wrong, you’re having dinner with me,”
“Let me guess, I have no option here either?”

“Nope,”

“Well, I guess you’ll be picking me up somewhere around seven?”

“No, make it six actually,” he retorted just to have the last word. I chuckled and gave in.

We chitchatted about stupid little things and bickered about even more stupid things until I finished my workout and we hung up.

“I’ll see you on Saturday,” he said before hanging up.

He was such a confusing person and it bothered me to no end. A part of me just wanted to forget his existence and go back to my old life when I was just living life and getting accustomed to the L.A ways; however another part of me was so intrigued by this man that I couldn’t stop thinking about him and I hated myself for this.

“There goes the promise I made to myself of staying concentrated on work,” I whispered to myself, and then remembered what Lisa had told me a couple of weeks ago “The moment you set yourself to stay away from boys, you’ll find one” as I walked out of the GYM and into the parking lot as my thoughts and opinions battled my emotions, making everything one big question mark. Damn you Lisa, why do you have to be right.

Notes