“No, you’re fine. There’s just a…” she trailed off. “I probably shouldn’t tell you. So can I just return this a-”
“Tell me.”
I don’t think I ever said something more assertively in my life. I had no clue what came over me. I don’t know if it was because I had already told off Morgan once, or if I had heard ‘it’s a secret’ one too many times, but I did know that I was sick of this game of “Quinn can figure it out later.”
“Really, Quinn, I want to tell you, but it’ll really only complicate things. For her, and for everyone,” Morgan protested.
“If you want to tell me, tell me. You have no idea how many people have told me, ‘Oh, I can’t tell you,’ or, ‘oh, you’ll see in time.’ I’m so sick of everyone assuming I can’t be let in on things. I can keep a secret if you want, but this keeps happening to me, and I’m allowed to say that enough is enough, aren’t I?”
Morgan stared right at me and chewed her lower lip in thought. Eventually she looked around and whispered, “Just… not in here. Your shift is over, right? Meet me outside.”
That was definitely the best offer I’d gotten so far. I nodded, and returned to the desk, issuing her refund and waiting around for the next few minutes until James gave me the all-clear. I did a few quick chores then got my sweater, ready to leave.
Morgan was waiting for me outside, leaning against the wall. “You took more than five minutes,” she commented.
“Yeah, I can’t believe you’re still here,” I quipped. Morgan smiled in acknowledgement of the joke. Morgan smiled so little that her face kinda changed when she lit up. Her normally lifeless face looked vibrant when she smiled. I really liked it.
“So, what was the big thing that GameStop can’t know?” I continued.
Morgan shook her head. “It’s not that GameStop can’t know, I just thought it was kind of a can of worms. So…” She paused, looking off in another direction. “Taylor… didn’t want anything to interfere with her getting a good grade. She didn’t want your peer-tutor relationship to get complicated or anything.”
Bit late for that.
“So, she asked me to… kind of not talk to you. I know that sounds weird, but I actually get it. Things were kind of complicated between you and the group from day one. She’s had peer tutors before, but usually they kept to themselves and they didn’t really have any drama surrounding them.”
“Wait, you’re telling me that I was the dramatic one of the bunch? Me?”
“I think it can happen to anybody, and it happened to happen to you,” Morgan reasoned. “Happened to happen… there’s gotta be a better way to phrase that. Anyway, I guess because she’s aware we had a… difficult beginning, she asked me not to talk to you until you two are finished.”
“She really asked you not to talk to me until we were finished Data Management? That’s such a weird stipulation,” I commented out loud. In response, Morgan blushed again and bit her bottom lip, looking down at the ground.
Something clicked for me in that moment, after remembering my conversation with Milo. “She asked you not to talk to me at all,” I realized. “You just figured that if you needed to talk to me, she wouldn’t care about how we saw each other after she was done tutoring me.”
Morgan nodded slowly.
“But wait, why do you need to talk to me? That part I don’t get. Are you telling me you didn’t actually need to go to GameStop in the first place, or what?” I asked her.
She looked up at me with half-closed eyes. “Wow, you really aren’t going to make this easy for me, are you?”
“Make what easy?”
“You hate secrets, right?”
“More than anything!”
“Do you still not get that I have a crush on you?”
My mouth was open but nothing came out. For maybe like the next ten seconds, nothing was said. I felt myself blushing, and looking away. “…What?”
Morgan gestured around her. “We’re adults. Can I not just say that?”
“No, no, you can, I’m just…”
“Did you really not even suspect it?”
“I, uh…” I tried to find the words, but it was like my brain was all jumbled up. “I guess I’m… kind of oblivious…” I shyly replied.
“Yeah, I guess,” Morgan replied quietly.
“So, you…”
“Yup,” Morgan replied flatly, looking at me with her usual emotionless expression but clearly slightly blushing herself. “…Do I get to live long enough to know if you feel the same way or not?”
Fuck me sideways. This was such a complicated situation. Part of me was wondering if Taylor knew about Morgan’s crush and wanted to keep it from me to make sure no conflicts of interest arose. Thank the overthinking, but I was now acutely aware that I was damned if I said yes, and damned if I said no, regardless of how I really felt.
And this could be blamed on the teenage hormones, but I had absolutely no idea what I even did feel. If I asked myself if I definitely had a crush on her, the answer would be ‘I’m not sure.’ If I asked myself whether I should just say no, once again, ‘I’m not sure.’
So what the hell could I answer?
“To hell with Taylor,” a voice met my ears. “You free this weekend? I want to do something with you. It can be a movie or a walk or something.”
That voice was mine. I was nervous, but I was exhilarated. Besides, Taylor was quite literally dating someone else while all of this was going down. Why the hell would she be the only one allowed to do that?
Morgan smiled again, but a much different kind of smile. A kind of ‘I wouldn’t have expected this reply in a million years’ kind of smile. “Um, yes. I mean, I’m not, but I’ll make sure I am. I’d like that. This weekend, right?”
“Yeah. Um, I don’t have a car.”
“Me neither, but I could probably get a ride or something. Where do you live?”
I gave her my address, then realized something. “But I can just meet you outside,” I offered. “My family are really, uh, nosy.”
“I know the feeling,” Morgan replied all too quickly. “Okay. We can go on a walk and find something to do. Saturday?”
“Saturday works for me,” I confirmed.
“Okay, sounds good,” Morgan replied quietly. “I’m going to go now.”
“Yeah, I should get going too,” I replied. As Morgan started to walk away, I added, “Thanks!”
“For what?”
“I dunno. Wanting to go out with me.”
Morgan did that popular girl thing where they smile with a confused or slightly shocked expression. It looked confused, but it felt like it was done because she liked me, in a ‘you’re so cute’ way. As far as I knew, no one ever had a crush on me before. That smile made my heart soar.
***
“I’m still not getting it,” Taylor confessed as we lay sprawled on her basement floor. This time, we elected to not start with sex, at my suggestion (though I hid my exact feelings as to why), which meant we were actually studying for the first time in way too long.
Which, of course, meant that Taylor was fairly behind again.
I sighed. “That’s okay,” I told her. “Just go over the problem again. You have the formula in front of you, so plug in the numbers like I showed you and find the percentage. That’s the ultimate goal here, remember that. You just need to know what means what.”
She stared at the page until I swear I saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes. “I’m not getting this,” she finally admitted. “I’m not getting any of it. I need a break.” She closed her book, thoroughly disgusted with it, and went over to collapse into her beanbag chair.