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When we spent the Christmas’ holiday at home our senior year, Lila woke up early and stumbled into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Crossing into the den, her attention was drawn to the large homemade red stockings hanging from the chimney. Her reaction to seeing the stuffed stocking named ‘Lila’ in sparkly glitter, and most of the presents under the tree addressed to her from Santa, went unobserved.
All I know is that when I finally woke up, I went out to see a teary-eyed girlfriend fiercely hugging my mother on the sofa. When she got tired of that, all she had to do was turn in the other direction and get another hug from my dad. By the time we left to go back to school two days later, she was comfortable calling my parents, Mom and Dad.
I kept speculating how my mother was going to take this. She was such a nurturing soul. That was what drew her to nursing in the first place. She specialized in neonatal care, helping the most helpless beings in the world. She shed tears of happiness for each baby that survived; tears of sorrow for each that didn’t.
How would she react when she found out? Should I tell her, or should I leave that for Lila? That heartbreak was at the least of my worries. The more important matters, were what about our marriage and relationship?
Counseling? Annulment? Separation? Divorce? What did I want? What did Lila want? What would we do with the baby? Custody and child support? God, what if she wanted an abortion? My brain was firing at light speed through each scenario and I was frustrated because I couldn’t come up with a solution for a single one of them… My untouched beer wasn’t helping at all as I continued staring at it.
It seemed as if my relationship with Lila was always fraught with complications, I thought wistfully back on our college days. I had been immediately attracted to this beautiful poised brunette in my first history class, sitting across the aisle in the lecture hall. Seventy individuals and the only person I focused on was her. So much so that I didn’t hear the professor call my name repeatedly, making his seating chart. The class chuckled at me and she froze me with a look.
Four weeks from that initial disaster, somehow, I gathered the courage to ask her out. That despite all my attempts to say hi, or smile at her, or catch her eye being met with an icy disdain. At least, I found out her name when the professor called on her one day to answer a question.
“Excuse me, Lila,” I stopped her while she gathered her books after class adjourned after a boring lecture on The War of the Roses. She turned and looked at me with studied indifference, as though I was a bug. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out this weekend?”
“I’m sorry,” I could see her pause as she thought for my name, “Mike?” she said questioningly. “I’m not interested in going out with anyone right now,” she flatly intoned.
“Perhaps, some other time,” I suggested to her back as she walked down the steps out of the room. She didn’t bother to respond.
I took solace in seeing that I seeing I wasn’t alone. She rebuffed every male, and the four females that I knew of that asked her out, that freshman year. I persisted. I would say hello to her every morning in class until I was finally rewarded with; if it wasn’t quite a smile, at least, it wasn’t a grimace. Periodically, I would renew my offer of a date. Shot down every time.
As I said, I wasn’t the only one getting shot down. Lawrence Addington IV, a first class rich prick if ever there was one, kept chasing after her, also, and with the same history of failures as I experienced, but to hear him boast, he was getting three blowjobs a day from a bevy of campus beauties, including Lila.
That made it even more satisfying when one day she walked up to him before class started and slapped the cowboy shit out of him. He started cussing her out, and advancing on her when I intervened and blocked him from striking her. At that moment, the professor walked into the room and started his lecture. We all took our seats.
Lila was throwing pissed off death glares at Lawrence, and occasionally at me. Lawrence reciprocated the looks. I guess he faulted me for preventing him from approaching Lila.
The rest of the class ignored the professor droning on some obscure treaty and watched the participants as though a MMA match about to break out. When the bell rung, Lawrence approached her and I stopped him by putting my hand on his chest warning him, “Don’t, dude!”
His lame attempt to push my hand away was easily rebuffed, and he swallowed hard when he saw I wouldn’t tolerate any abuse by him. He made up some bullshit remarks and retreated out of the room. That allowed me to turn around and walk into a buzzsaw.
“Did I ASK you for any help?” The frigid contempt of her voice matched the ice queen countenance on her face.
I hesitantly replied, “No.”
“Then in the future, kindly keep out of my business!” With that, she stalked away from me. I watched, transfixed by the furious swaying of her buttocks as she stormed away. God help me had she turned and realized what I was doing.
So, college life continued, I focused on my business major and Lila, apparently, was in some computer tech field. The chances of attending the same classes were slim after our freshman year.
I decided not to pine away, and dated an extensive number of girls. I let them know I wasn’t looking for any serious relationships and only had a few times when a particular girl wanted to take it to the next level. That was basically the gist of my shallow existence, when one unexpected rainy afternoon I made a run for it to the student’s parking lot.
As I tried to outrun the thunderstorm, I had my keys out to quickly unlock the door and get into my clunker. I had my jacket covering my head in an effort not to get drenched. Just as I approached the row my car was located in, I glanced over to the side.
There was a girl behind a car that was even in worse shape than mine was. She was trying to loosen the first lug nut on the wheel of her flat tire. The car was jacked up and swaying precariously from her efforts. One wrong move would bring the car slipping off the jack and crashing down, possibly harming her.
I could only blame my ‘help the damsel in distress’ gene, hardwired in my DNA. I went over to her as she grunted from her unsuccessful efforts to break loose the tension holding the nut firmly fixed to the wheel.
“Excuse me. It looks like you could use some help,” I ventured to the hapless would-be mechanic.
She turned from her kneeling position, drenched to the bone. It was Lila. She was wearing a white t-shirt that had soaked through. Her prominent attributes were clearly visible through the transparent cloth, and the coldness had her nipples standing out in their perky glory. My eyes naturally drifted to glimpse them before I could will myself to return my gaze to Lila’s face.
I hadn’t fooled her. She saw where my eyes had been seconds ago, and she was not pleased. She was obviously pissed at her situation, and I hadn’t helped matters. She swiveled to obstruct my view of her torso and yanked again on the lug wrench.
“No, I don’t need any help, especially from you!”
With that, she jerked again on the lug wrench, trying her best to get the lug nut off. The car moved dangerously with her efforts.
“Lila,” I warned, “You are working at a disadvantage having the car jacked up before you loosen the lug nuts. You can’t get the needed torque to get the lug nuts loose. You need to lower the jack until the car is back on the ground, then loosen the lug nuts, and then jack the car up so you can remove the wheel.”
“It would also help if you have your spare ready to be attached instead of being in your raised car. That will make it harder for you to remove the spare from the trunk.”
“I can do this on my own!” she proclaimed.
“I’m not saying you can’t.” I responded, in as a non-threatening manner as I could muster. “Look, I’m going to stay here to make sure you don’t hurt yourself whether you like it or not. It doesn’t make sense that both of us get drenched to the bone while you fix the flat. You are obviously chilled, now. Why don’t you go to my car, get inside and get warm while I take care of this?” I held my keys out to her and motioned to my car.
For a second I thought she would reject my offer, but with a huff she straightened up, grabbed my keys and ran to my car. Again, I briefly enjoyed the sight of delightful sway of her ass in her jeans.
I turned and lowered the jack, got the spare out of the trunk and bounced it to make sure it held pressure. It was as threadbare as the tire it was replacing. I would have to warn Lila about that.
I started to take care of the lug nuts. I grunted from the effort of trying to loosen the rusted nuts on the wheel. As much exertion as I was having to do, it would have been insurmountable for Lila. Finally, with protesting screech, the rusty lug nuts broke loose and turned freely on the thread. I raised the jack as quickly as I could, removed the nuts, removed the flat tire, replaced it with the spare, tightened the lug nuts back on, lowered the jack, and, a final tightening of the nuts with the wrench.NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.
By this time, I was shivering from the cold rain. I opted to throw everything in the trunk of Lila’s car and I slammed the lid. I ran huddled to my car, as though that would help my situation. Lila sat behind the wheel of my car as it idled, her angelic eyes closed as she listened to the car radio. I almost considered just standing there watching her.
I knocked on the window and her eyes flew open. Her gaze searched around in the unfamiliar vehicle until she looked at me. Her arms instinctively crossed her chest to prevent my observation.
She unlocked the door and opened it. As she was climbing out of the seat, I told her, “Lila, grab my umbrella from the passenger seat. No use in you getting wet again. At least somebody should get some use out of it today,” I joshed.
She opened the proffered umbrella before climbing out. Briefly, we stood huddled close from the storm.
“Thank you, Mike. I’ll return it to you tomorrow.” She said.
“Don’t worry about that, Lila. Are you headed home?” I asked.
She stiffened from my question. The gratitude in her eyes shifted to a wary look. “Yes, why do you ask?” She cautiously wondered.
“Your spare isn’t in much better shape than your flat tire,” I informed her. “I’d feel better following you home to make sure that you didn’t run into any more trouble.”
“No!” She emphatically pronounced. “There isn’t any need of you following me home!” the finality of her tone left no doubt that she was refusing any other assistance from me. I watched her go to her car and climb in. Meanwhile, I sat behind the wheel of my car and watched her drive off.
In a few seconds, I put my car in gear and trailed after her discreetly. I continued trailing her until she pulled off the street in front of a shoddy apartment duplex. As I drove past, I saw her eyes open wide as she discovered my treachery at refusing to obey her orders. Her pissed off look left no doubt that the next time I saw her, it wasn’t going to be pleasant for me.