"You were not being a cunt at all. Stop listen to MG, she's still a shit show." KSL said. They had just come from listening to a local musician she had a crush on and had conceded when he seemed to be more interested in Banana.
He had come to return the CDs he'd borrowed and they ended up staying longer than anticipated when MG showed up after she had texted MG that she was leaving.
"Is something wrong? Are we okay?" MG had asked.
She wanted to answer no, she didn't want to spend every waking minute with her when she was quitting smoking and being angry and mean.
They made an excuse for him to come up, and he had a vodka coke because he was on a diet.
"You know your diet is doing nothing until you get your thyroid checked and get on medication right? You have health insurance, you are the 1%, go to the doctor."
He sighed and said "I don't know how to do all that adulting stuff. I don't even have a doctor. How do you get one?"
She looked him dead in the eye and said "What is the name of your insurance?"
He sensed that she would go all the way with this and look it up if he answered her, so he said "Okay, okay, I'm sure there is a list at work or something. I'll do it."
He changed the subject to the night of her birthday and how out of hand the drinking had gotten. "I bruised myself trying to boop your nose!" She exclaimed.
"Hey, you bruised me trying to boop my nose!"
"You should just let Drunk Penny do what she wants, she's stubborn."
"That's the sort of thing rapists say."
"Please, booping a nose is not rape. Besides I'm not having sex with you again."
His face fell slightly, but he recovered quickly to say "Okay, that's fair. I understand that. You are trying to keep the friendship we have right now going on it's trajectory, which is healthy. Besides we agreed on New Years to not do it again."
"No, you agreed. And although all those things are true, that's not why I'm not having sex with you again."
"Oh. Then why? You don't find me attractive anymore? Since I shaved my head?"
She rolled her eyes at him and said "No, because you are the type of person who avoids doctors and STD tests, and you had sex with your ex unprotected. And even though I'd never have unprotected sex with anyone including you, I don't trust her. You could be running around with god knows what--"
He interrupted her, "Okay okay I'll go to a doctor. Shit."
He was quiet, and she looked over at him. He was staring out the window at the city, pensive.
"What are you thinking?" She asked him when he didn't turn to meet her gaze into his eyes. He snapped back into focus and said "sorry, just got lost thinking about...everything that needs to be done for the wake and stuff."
He told her where he was planning on spreading his friends ashes at their old community college. He talked for awhile and she let him. She was pensive herself, thinking about how she gave 110% to people and didn't get anything back. "You need to stop giving so much of yourself" he had told her earlier. She didn't know how to do that. It was being disingenuous to herself. She could either keep being herself or retreat and not be friends with anyone anymore.
"For as bitter and cynical as you pretend to be, you still want to see the best in people, still want to see their potential." He said to her. A friend had said something similar to her years ago.
"I keep going back to that convo that PJ and I had about seeing potential in people that others don't see."
"I'm curious then, what potential do you now see in me, a year later?" KSL knew he was playing with fire, but asked her anyway.
She took a deep breath, and decided to answer honestly. Give him the closure that he hadn't given her.
"You still have that potential I saw a year ago. You have changed, and for the better. I've asked things of you, deal-breaking things for me. As far as I know, you've continued to be honest with me when I asked you not to lie again. You really have improved. You just need to be able to accept love and see your own potential."
She cleared her throat as it was starting to hurt again, and he noticed and said "So, the tonsillectomy. When is that again?"
"May 8th....I'll just have my mom pick me up though, it's okay. I'll deal with her."
"Hey, I made a promise, I said I was going to help you and I am."
"It just seems too intimate of a thing to ask you. I don't feel right about it." She felt her face getting hot.
"Penny, you've had my dick in your mouth. We've been intimate." She blushed, then winced at his statement, but also nodded.
"It just seems like a relationship thing to do, like picking someone up from the airport--"
Again he interrupted "I pick up lots of people from the airport."
She sighed, then looked at him. He starred back at her, and she was reminded of this time last year when they were getting "lost in each other's eyes" and being intense. Only this time instead of going in for a kiss, her eyes narrowed.
"Are you sure this won't be too big of an imposition? You can say yes, it's okay."
He still wanted to do it.
While talking he took off his newsboy cap and put it on her head. "For your 'hat stealing photo' collection." She smiled at him, snapped a photo, and gave it back. Later she posted it on social media and he was one of the first to like it. He really seemed to be making strides in being okay with people knowing they are friends.
Between taking care of her and finally going for an STD/HIV test, she wasn't sure what level of "friendship" they'd reached. For a fleeting moment she thought he had taken the romantic comedy pact to heart. She guessed only time would tell his true intentions.
