Chapter 17

The following morning found April and I sitting in the waiting room of Student Health. Ann's name had been called ten minutes ago or so, though that didn't really mean anything; she could be in there for an hour before anybody would think to check on her.

Fortunately we were the only ones in the waiting room. I was a nervous wreck, though I was trying not to show it. April, as usual, looked perfectly calm. I stood to get a cup of water from the cooler.

"How you doing?" asked April.

"... I guess I'm doing okay. I'm nervous," I said.

"Yeah, well, so am I," she said.

"You don't look it. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were here for a sore throat or something trivial like that."

She just laughed quietly and smiled. "Or a sore pussy."

"Geez, keep your voice down. Besides, that's as much Ann's fault as mine."

"Well, yes, that's true. Anyway, what I really meant is, are you feeling any better?"

"About us, you mean?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"Sure, I feel better. I mean, you and I have pretty much run the gamut of relationship emotions this weekend, haven't we?"

"Are you happy with where we ended up?"

"How could I not be happy." I sat down next to her and took a sip of water. "I'm in love with a sexy, smart, wonderful girl who encourages me to explore 'extra-curricular activities', as long as I afford her the same courtesy. Just coming to grips with how I feel about you was the highlight of the weekend. The rest of it is icing."

"You say the sweetest things sometimes."

"You caught me on a good day. Really, I'm just sorry that we had to go through this the hard way."

"No pun intended, I'm sure." She giggled and punched me in the arm.

"No, really. Having you walk in on me cheating on you with two underage girls is probably not what I'd call 'the easy way'."

"What would you call the easy way?"

"Talking about it before something stupid like that happened."

"First of all, stop cutting yourself down. Second, it takes a lot of courage to bring that sort of topic up. Think back a couple of days, and think of what you would have guessed my reaction to be if you'd said that?"

"Well, honestly, I would think that you would have slapped me for even mentioning it."

"Exactly. Look, this communication thing looks great on paper, but it takes some work in reality. You're an engineer, don't they teach you the difference between theory and practice?"

"Sure. And if I've learned anything about it, it's that I need a lot of practice in order to test the theory. Which I intend to do. I also intend to test this 'friends who fuck can still be friends' theory."