Given Time

?5?

I'm in the middle of zipping up the back when I hear my phone chime on the bed.

I stop what I'm doing and turn my phone over, thinking it may be a message from Zara to see if I'm ready yet, but when I see the notification lit up on my screen, I freeze in shock.

"Tanner Cole has sent you a friend request."

What the hell!

Why on earth is Tanner sending me a friend request? We've never had any contact online before, and the only times we do have contact is when our families hang out or we inadvertently end up at the same gathering.

I know my dad wants me to try and work it out with Tanner, but after years of us at each other's throats, how is us going to college going to change that? It's like that old saying - a leopard can't change its spots.

I bring up my account to hit decline, but as I'm about to press the button, my finger freezes. I don't have to decline him right away. I could just leave it. Either way, it has the same effect.

Before I exit my account, I see that I have a few tags from some of my old school friends and a couple of unseen messages. I scroll through the tags first and then open my messages and give a small smile when I see that I have a new message from Shawn. I meant it when I said to Zara that we've been managing to remain friends since we broke up.

Shawn: Hey, you. I'm all settled in at Stanford now. My roommate seems to be cool, and he's going to use his fake ID to get us some beers later for a block party. How're things going at Berkeley? What's your roommate like? x

It doesn't go unnoticed that he's left a kiss at the end of this message. I learned a while ago that if I reciprocate in that way, then he seems to jump to conclusions and tries to flirt with me. He hasn't sent me one of these in a few weeks, so I know something's up.

I look at Shawn's profile picture above the message and see that green light is on, telling me that he's still online. I press the button to enter a new message and type out a quick response.

Me: Hi. Berkeley is great! So is my roommate, thank God! Seriously though, I thought I was going to have a mini heart attack when I saw her. You remember that girl in high school with the motorcycle? She looks so much like her. Luckily she isn't mean like that girl was. I thought you had your own fake ID?

He immediately starts messaging me back. I watch as the dots on my phone move back and forth.

Shawn: I can just picture her. Good thing your roommate is nothing like her. I lost my ID when I was packing, so I've got to get another somehow. You should get one while you're at college. It'll come in handy. x

Me: Do you honestly see me walking around with a fake ID?

Shawn: Good point. But if you get one, we can use it the same night to get in a bar or something. You're only a fifty-minute drive away, and I'm going to get a car in the next few weeks, so we can meet up and go explore. x

And there it is. It would be nice to see a familiar face over the coming weeks, but I don't want to go out with him and have it be awkward if he expects something more.

I stare at the screen for a few minutes while I think about how to turn him down gently.

Me: Thanks for the offer, but I think I want to spend the first few weeks settling in and to get to know my new peers. Maybe in the future, we can. Just not right now.

I bite on my nail as I watch the dots momentarily appear and then disappear again. After another minute, the dots reappear again.

Shawn: No worries. I get that you want to settle in. Maybe in a month or so, we can.