“I do not think you could be of much use to me, I’m afraid,” the boy said. He seemed polite about it, but Melissa still felt her cheeks flush from embarrassment. And after putting herself out there like she had, too… Really, this was her worst fear, wasn’t it? She’d been shut down at the start and now had to go through the process of distancing herself again, a process made all the worse by the fact that this wasn’t exactly a setting she could disappear from. The boy’s eyes would follow her until she was far into the distance -- she could be certain of that.
“Oh, alright. Sorry again,” Melissa said. She stood up, a little unsure of what else to do, but she felt she had to do something.
And then, just as Melissa had accepted that things could not get any worse, her phone sounded off not once, but twice. A veritable storm of audible vibrations, it was, and Melissa scrambled for her phone.
Her first message -- that was to say, the most recent -- was something Souji had posted to the group chat. It was almost at skimming length on her first pass, though reading it closer at least gave her the opportunity to relax a little bit. She could pretend the messages were calling her off somewhere and she could slink away. What could be a better excuse than that?
Even better, her other message (though saying “other” implied it was the lesser of the two, which it certainly was not) was from Gabby. How are you? it said. Simple enough, though over text it required a bit more thought than the standard answers of “Fine” and “Alright.”
She did settle on I’m doing rather well. which was still a social lie, but typing out “just a notch or two above mortified” felt like it wasn’t worth the additional explanation that she imagined Gabby asking about. Melissa did want to continue the text conversation, though -- there had to be a reason Gabby had started one besides inquiring about her health, after all -- so she added in How have you been? Did you sleep okay? and turned away from the park bench, ready to head down the path.
“Actually-”
If she’d been any other person observing the scene, Melissa probably would have found it scary how quickly Melissa had returned to her seat on the park bench. Reflexes and desire to please, those were her twin explanations if she ever thought about it, though the blink-of-an-eye action seldomly drew more of her attention in the moment than whatever she was moving to. This was no exception; all of her, from her posture and body language to her concern and thought, was directed right at the boy sitting with her on the bench.
“- While I do not need someone to vent my frustrations to, I could use another person's insight into how I might best solve my problem. Do you have a few minutes to spare, perhaps?”
“Of course,” Melissa said as soon as she could. “How can I help?”“But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.”
-2 Chronicles 15:7
