It's lame, but at least I wrote something... right? *puppy eyes*
~*~
My phone rings.
Meredith continues to ramble about what’s-his-face, not stopping to take a breath or maybe just give me one second to decide if I was going to take this call. She is about to drive me crazy, what with asking me every thirty seconds if I think Mr. Total Hottie in our Chem class ever looks at her and musing aloud whether her pale blue sweater compliments her eyes or her hair and singing that Josh Groban song in her thin, off-key voice all the time—that song I used to like.
Sitting cross-legged in the grass, I reach for my cell phone, and for a moment I think Meredith’s eyes are going to fall out of her head.
“What are you doing?”
“Answering my phone.” I turn it over to check the caller I.D. It’s him.
“But—you can’t just—this is totally important—“
“I know, hon, but I have to take this. I’ll be back, okay?” I smile at her and flip open my phone.
I wave apologetically at Meredith as I back away, relief washing over me as I escape her fake blonde hair, excessive mascara and incessant giggling. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me.”
There it is. That smile I can never seem to stop when I hear his voice spreads over my face. “Hey. How are you?”
“I’m fine. How was your—damn it, hang on a second. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
There always seems to be something going on up there, even when he’s gotten stuff out of the way so he can have some down time in the barracks. I really don’t mind; it’s more than wonderful to talk to him on such a regular basis.
I can hear him lower the phone to call out, “Enter sir or ma’am,” (his proper response) and another voice joins the two already speaking in the background. I take the opportunity to step off the grass of the area where Meredith and I were sitting and step onto the sidewalk. I meander contentedly down the sidewalk as he spouts off a “yes, Sergeant” and a “no, Sergeant,” and “I haven’t received that e-mail yet, Sergeant.”
I reach behind my head to finger my ponytail and find myself wishing that he were the one with his fingers in my hair. I’m tempted to take it down, just to make myself feel closer to him, but it seems so lame and pathetic that I resist.
There’s a shuffling, and he’s back on the phone. “Hey, sorry about that.”
“It’s fine.”
“So let’s try this again. Hi, how are you?”
I’m grinning like an idiot. “I’m completely euphoric. My feet actually aren’t touching the sidewalk. You’d laugh if you could see me. Floating sounds great in theory, but it actually looks kind of funny in practice.”
He’s laughing at me. “And may I ask what it is that has you walking on air?”
“You just rescued me from the clutches of a particularly vicious villainess who was plotting to steal my youth and beauty and transfer it to herself so that she could remain young and fresh for all eternity. She’s already done it to one girl today and she’s looking pretty rough—dark circles and everything. And I suppose it’s a bonus that I’m talking to you now.”
I can hear his grin as he speaks. “I’ll take what I can get. So what’s the name of this terror?”
“Empress of All That Is Frilly and Annoying, sometimes known as Meredith.”
He groans. “Her again?”
“She lives right down the hall from me and we have Chemistry together. She’s nice until she opens her mouth.”
“Yeah, I know a few like that.”
“I can imagine. But enough about me. How was your day?”
There’s a pause. “Fine.”
“Sounds it. You know you don’t have to sugar-coat it for me.” I pause beneath a tree, one hand shoved into my jean pocket.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Sure. You know I’ll just find out whatever it is when I get up there next week.” I’m going to visit him over Easter weekend, and my roommate has begun to keep a tally of every time I talk about the trip. Each mention earns me a mark on her expo board, and she says once she runs out of room I’ll have to find myself a new place to sleep.
“It’s nothing.”
“I’ll bet it grates on your roommate’s nerves when your nose grows at such an accelerated rate.”
“Have you had caffeine recently? You always talk like somebody off Gilmore Girls when you’re artificially energized.”
“Love you too, babe.”
“You know it’s true.”
“So now that evasive maneuvers have failed, you’re moving into frontal assault?”
He sighs and I can hear him shift in his chair as it squeaks. “I’m sorry. I just blew my APFT.”
“Did you pass?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” he snaps, more to himself than to me. “Of course I passed! But I didn’t reach my goals—you know, the ones that I was trying to get to earlier this year.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Yeah, well, it’s not your fault.”
“Should I send you some Cheetos?” He’s been a big Cheetos fan since we were twelve. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the summer when he went through one jumbo-sized bag per every two days.
I hear him laugh softly. “No, I’ll pass, but thanks.”
“I could send the puffy kind.”
“You like the puffy kind. I like the spicy ones.”
“Then the spicy ones it is.”
“They’ll just get all jacked up if you mail them up here,” he says, but I can hear the grin in his voice.
“And arrive completely crumbled so that you’ll have to eat them with a spoon.”
“Sounds delicious.”
“Better yet,” I say, plopping down beneath a tree that sufficiently blocks the glaring heat of the April afternoon. “You could just mix them up with your liquid of choice and drink it like a shake. Serve chilled.”
“Sick. You know, you could probably win a gross-out contest with my roommate.”
I laugh, and then I hear a shuffle in the background and he says, “No, man, get lost…No…Stop it! Jackass!”
And then the phone has switched from one cadet to another and the voice that comes over the line is Patrick, his roommate.
“Hey baby. Have you told him the news yet?”
“Which news?” I ask. Most of the time I don’t humor him, but I’m in an oddly light-hearted mood.
“About us,” Patrick says, sounding crushed.
“Nope, sorry, haven’t found a good time yet.”
“You’re talking about Cheetos for God’s sakes. I love you and you love me and there’s really no point in putting it off any longer. I miss you so; I miss your hair, your smile, your voice, the way you look from behind when you walk, the—ow, shit!”
There is a scuffle, more cursing, and the phone is taken from Patrick.
“Did you beat him good?” I ask, shaking with laughter.
“You have no idea,” he mutters, and I can feel the death glare, even a thousand miles away.
“I think the part that amuses me the most about this is the fact that he’s never even met me.”
“I’ve got pictures.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask, still laughing a little. “Pictures don’t give you a good idea of how someone looks from behind while they’re walking.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m still going to kill him after we hang up.”
“Don’t get caught.”
“I won’t.”
“I have no doubt of it.” I’m grinning like an idiot, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I always forget how deep his voice is until we’re talking and every so often he’ll say something—doesn’t have to be anything important—that makes my heart beat just a little bit faster. “You know, it’s your fault he took the phone from you anyway.”
“How’s that?” he asks, and odd combination of his accents makes me shake my head. His o’s have started coming out like a true New Yorker, yet his a’s remain as they always were—containing the barest hint of a Texas drawl.
“You brought him up.”
I can picture him rolling his eyes. “Sure, blame it on me.”
“Well, as you know, God hates cadets,” I say, using the old phrase that it more commonly passed around the cadets themselves.
“No,” he replies. “God hates plebes.”
“But I like you. You’re nice.”
“Thanks,” he laughs. “But I have to go call minutes… so I guess…”
“You want me to call you later?” I ask. Sometimes it’s easier for me to call him and force him to take a study break than it is for him to break his concentration or momentum and then not catch me.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Okay. Talk to you later.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
My idiotic grin remains as I hang up the phone. My feet, which have been shed of their flip-flops sometime during our conversation, bury themselves into the grass, searching for the coolness of the dirt beneath the heat of the green sprouts.
It’s humid today, more so than it has been all week. We need rain.
But for now, I’m just content to be: to imagine Meredith’s expression when I never return (thank God I didn’t take any books with me to go meet her; I’d have to go back for them), to imagine him calling minutes and making last minute preparations before dinner formation, to imagine what it will be like in that first instant when I see him next week, and to enjoy the rest of my day, lightened by only a few minutes talking to him.
lol
I'm actually growing quite fond of them myself, these nameless characters of mine. 
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