Page 199 of Built to Fall
LINA
For it being a random midnight at Sal’s Diner, it’s oddly busy. And somehow, it still contains mostly football players.
Grant has been talking with different members of the team almost all evening, and while his attention constantly returns to me in between conversations, I see the guilty look on his face every time we make eye contact.
He can’t help it. No matter how many times he tells his teammates to fuck off or that he’s here with his girlfriend, they keep dragging him into conversations, not caring much what he has to say about it.
Personally, I don’t mind. It’s not like Grant is purposefully trying to ignore me. With my newfound interest in proving to myself that I am not dependent on Grant, I’m somewhat grateful for the interruption.
It’s the main reason why I hate the fact that he feels guilty every time he remembers I’m sitting next to him. It makes me wonder if he thinks I expect his undivided attention one hundred percent of the time.
I bring it up the next time he glances over at me. “You know, you don’t have to feel bad for having a conversation with your friends.”
He doesn’t seem shocked by it, which makes me feel better. Then again, I’m not the best at picking up whether the face he’s putting on is a facade or not. That’s part of my emotional literacy manual that is missing, along with anything else involving emotional intuition.
“I know that,” he tells me, sounding honest from what I can decipher. “I just feel bad that I brought you here, and now I’m barely able to talk to you.”
I wave him off. “We have all night to talk, and no offense, but I came here to eat.”
“I’m taking full offense to that,” he teases back playfully, his smile growing as he chews his gum.
“Seriously though,” I say. “I’m not going to be angry at you for talking to your friends, so stop looking over at me like I’m some sort of wounded animal.”
He knows this about me. He knows I’m strong-willed and a little too independent for my own good. It’s one of the reasons he had to work so hard to worm his way into my life.
But just because I’ve given him a spot closest to my heart doesn’t mean I have to give up those parts of myself. I’m not suddenly going to become all soft and mushy just because I’m dating Grant.
I can be held without being hollowed. Just because I’m his doesn’t mean I’ve stopped being mine.
It’s similar to what Savannah had told me last week after my birthday party. My concern about becoming too attached to Grant has really been showing, and I was projecting it onto the situation with Kara.
I didn’t want to feel like I was abandoning my friends for a boyfriend. I also didn’t want to feel like I was abandoningmyselffor a boyfriend.
She said,“You’re very used to being hyper-independent, which isn’t a bad thing. But just because you’re giving upthe tiniest amount of independence to let Grant into your life doesn’t mean you suddenly become dependent on him. He wouldn’t want you to.”
And that’s true. But it’s also true that I haven’t slept a full night without him. And not because I miss him in some vague, romantic way, but because I physically can’t. My mind won’t settle. My body won’t rest. It’s like he flipped some invisible switch inside me, and now his presence is the only thing that quiets the static.
So maybe I do need him, at least in that way. And maybe that doesn’t make me any less mine.
“What are you thinking?” Grant asks, noticing the way I’ve been staring at the menu a bit too long.
“Definitely crinkle fries.” I nod strongly, closing the menu.
He gives me a look, because I know that’s not what he was really asking. “Should I just go ahead and order two of my burgers now?”
I roll my eyes at him. So it may have become a bad habit of mine to not order my own burger and instead take a bite of Grant’s. Only for me to then realize I want more. The past couple of times, I’ve eaten the rest of his burger with his approval while he’s gone and ordered another one.
“I don’t want a burger.”
He stands from the booth. “We’ll see about that.”
“I’m serious!” I call as he walks toward the front counter.
A lot of the times when it gets super busy in here, waiters stop making their rounds and instead have you go straight to the counter to order.
On his way back from ordering our food, he gets stopped by a table full of guys. I don’t recognize them, but I assume they’re talking about football.
I don’t mind talking about football. In fact, I’ve made a great attempt to do so because I know how important it is to him.A lot of his teammates, however, automatically assume that girlfriends don’t like talking about that stuff.
