I Will Wait

I had just done what was probably the stupidest thing of my adolescent life. I passed up on the golden opportunity of asking Rashaell out. Why? It's hard to say. Possibly a mixture of fear and guilt. The fear of the unknown and the guilt of asking out my friend's ex - which, if How I Met Your Mother has taught me anything, it's that asking out your bro's ex is highly frowned upon. However, what I was telling myself and everyone else was that I didn't ask her out because I wanted to give her some time to sort things out. This, in part, was true; but not the full extent of the truth. Weather it was the full truth or not, I was giving her time. I kept telling myself, "A few more weeks. A few more weeks and I'll finally do it." But a few more weeks may have been too long.

     It was a hot July day in 2012 and I was in the final stretch of my morning shift at work. I was working with four other people. Gabby (a sacker like myself), Emma (the dingo ate your baby lady), Ashlee (the hell-spawn herself), and Rashaell. The girls were chattering on and I, being a man, was very disinterested in their conversation. Emma, Ashlee, and Gabby went on and on and on about who their dates were that night. Not being able to leave my station, I just had to tune them out. However, amid the monotonous talk of boys and love lives, I overheard Rashaell say, "Am I the only person here without a date tonight?" My ears perked up like a dog to the sound of a dog whistle. Was this an opening? Was this the opportunity I needed?

     "Well," I said, "if it makes you feel any better, as long as you are working with me, you are assuredly not the only person without a date on a given night."

     She laughed and said, "That's very comforting, but I don't need to feel any better. I may not have a date tonight, but I do tomorrow night."

     "Oooh! Who is it?" One of the other girls asked. Rashaell replied some name, but it was here that I began tuning out again. Unlike the past, I was not too worried about this new information. She has a date, so what? It's probably just a rebound anyway. It couldn't last more that two or three weeks. However, I seem to always be wrong about theses things. Nearly two years later as I am sitting behind this computer screen writing this blog entry, Rashaell is in a committed relationship with the very same guy afore mentioned. Not asking her out when I had the chance is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever done, or maybe I dodged a bullet. Who knows. The future is an uncertain thing.