Introduce Himself

Trebor decides to shoot his shot. I can do this, he says to himself. What’s the worse that can happen besides public humiliation?

To Trebor’s delight, she isn’t talking to her friends. She’s just staring out the window. First, Trebor knows that he needs to control his breathing. He tries to speak under his breath to calibrate his voice so it doesn’t crack when he talks to her. 

He inches over to her and clears his throat. She doesn’t look over. He nods and looks out the window, hoping to look natural. He clears his throat a second time but this time to speak. 

“Hello,” he squeaks. He barely gets the word out but it does the trick.

She looks over at him.

“I see you on the bus a lot and I was just wondering if you’d ever be interested in--” 

She clicks the AirPods that are hidden by her long brown hair and says, “What?” By her expression, Trebor believes that he just interrupted her favorite song.

Her friends giggle. 

Don’t let that rattle you, he says to himself. “Sorry, I didn’t see your headphones. I see you riding the bus a lot. I’m Trebor.”

“Okay.”

“What’s your name?”

The girl sighs in defeat and says, “I’m Cynthia.”

“I like that name,” he says. 

As the bus comes to a stop, she and her friends stand up to exit. 

It’s now or never. “Can I call you sometime?” he blurts out.

“My dad won’t allow boys to call me,” she says.

Trebor scrambles to grab a pen from his backpack and rips a random paper and writes down his name and number. “If anything changes, please feel free to call me.”

She takes the paper and shoves it in her pocket. She gives a sympathetic nod, taps her AirPod, and exits the bus with her friends. 

Trebor stares out the window and wonders if he’ll ever see her again. Probably not and the irrational grief that he let the perfect girl for him walk away overcomes him and he briefly panics that he’ll never meet anybody and die alone. At least he gave it his all. He then looks out the window and sees a jogger trip and fall and laughs to himself. 

Trebor exits the bus and walks along the park to his home. He looks over and sees a cute girl, named Yesenia, that he went to his middle school with, holding birthday balloons. She was considered to be a popular girl and he never seemed to come up with a good enough reason to talk to her. 

What should Trebor do?

(Choose below)