She's doing better.
No, seriously.
For real.
It's been a few days (3 and 6 hours, but hey, who's counting? Not her. Definitely not.) and she's doing better.
Aside from a small, classy, probably-just-hormonal crying fit yesterday, after an hour of fitful internet not-quite-stalking, she's absolutely fine. Doing great, actually.
And this girl… Grace Webster, as she's found out from her aforementioned not-quite-stalking session, sounds great.
(Well, not really - she's older and has a kid and has been divorced twice and attended Caltech, apparently, which is just so pretentious. Also, she posts stupid healthy dinner recipes to her Facebook at least once a day, has 2 dogs, and what seems to be a rocky relationship with her ex-husband. She also plays classical violin and sings for her local church choir and-
Basically, she's just. Wrong. For Jeff. She's not the type of girl he usually goes for - though girl doesn't seem to cover her, not quite - and, hey, no one is that well put-together. She's probably an alcoholic. There has to be something wrong with her, right?)
So she goes to work and she comes home and she hangs out with her roommate and she goes to sleep and she goes to work and she comes home hangs out with her roommate and occasionally, yeah, she'll scroll through his Twitter feed and swipe down his Instagram page until she can't scroll any further and draft about 12 different texts to him, but that's fine.
They haven't spoken, not properly, since that night. Just texts. She keeps it casual, of course.
"how's things?"
"washington is great!"
"work is fun!"
"roommate and i are going out later :)"
He usually responds something generic and pleasant, like, "sounds great!" or "i'm glad you're enjoying it!" or "have fun!"
And that's fine.
So maybe today she's feeling a little under-the-weather, and during her lunch break at work she doesn't particularly feel like buying a sandwich to eat at her desk, and she treks the 10-minute walk to the nearest Starbucks.
It's a total break from her routine, but according to her calculations (and she's calculated it thrice, just to be sure) she can still make it back in time.
So she orders a small latte and takes a table-for-one in the corner and is scrolling through her Twitter feed when something reaches out of the screen and physically attacks her eyeballs.
A. Picture.
W h a t?
It's, well. It's Jeff. Winger. And… Her. Grace Webster, and their heads are close, and he's doing a wide eye-squinty smile, and she's showing off her perfect teeth, and - oh God - his arm is around her chair.
It's a retweet, but he hasn't edited Grace's caption. (And, God, she hates that she's so used to her that she's on first-name-basis already.) "Third date with this charmer!"
U G H. What's even happening? This isn't like him. Everyone who knows him knows that the closest thing he's ever had to a real relationship was the gross on-again-off-again fling with Slater, back in their first year. This just - no.
But then again… He looks happy. Properly happy, not in the usual resigned, bemused Greendale way, but in a way that suggests he's just content.
She can't remember the last time he looked like that. (Probably some time before Troy left, before Shirley left, before Abed left, before she left. Maybe even before Pierce passed.)
And she wants him to be happy. She does.
(Maybe not with Grace Webster, preferably, but if that's what it takes, then…)
So she wills her thumb to stop twitching and presses the little heart at the corner of the tweet. The little like counter changes to 1.
"You're back late."
"Am I?" Annie quickly goes to check the time on her phone.
"No, no. Sorry, I just meant you're lat-er than usual, is all."
"Oh." She dumps her bag on the desk and collapses into the uncomfortably stern desk chair.
"Yeah."
She looks up at her coworker. (Co-internshipper? Whatever.) He's staring at her desk, but not her. It takes her a few seconds to put a name to his face, until she remembers her initial tour of the building with the other interns. Alex.
"Alex, right?" She asks, hoping he won't think her rude for forgetting his name.
"Um, yeah." He nods like a chicken. "And you're Annie, right? Annie Edison?"
"That's me." She wants to ask him how the hell he knows her lunch schedule, but refrains out of pure curiosity. He seems like he's working himself up to say something, and whatever it is looks like it's important to him.
"You always take your lunch break at the same time every day." He observes. "And you're usually back 10 minutes early. But today you were only back 5."
"Uh-huh…"
"And I was just wondering… Well." He scrubs a hand at the back of his head and finally meets her eyes, though he's squinting. "You seem really nice, and I was wondering if you would like… To, uh. Go to lunch with me sometime."
She almost says yes, but then, just on time, she realises what he actually means. It's - He's asking her out. As in, going out to lunch. As in, dating. As in, relationship.
For a moment she tries to imagine what it could be like - like, maybe he would take her to a nice restaurant and tell her about his life and they'd get along like a house on fire, and maybe eventually down the road there could be marriage and kids and old age and death.
But it's just not natural. She barely gets past third date when images of perfectly shit-eating grins and sincere blue eyes and Jeffrey goddamn Winger start to infiltrate the experiment.
"I have a boyfriend." She blurts out, without thinking, and nope, she is not going to let herself analyse this later. "Sorry," she adds, chastely.
His face is an odd mix of disappointment and earnest resignedness. "The guy you talk to on the phone in your car at breaks?"
"What makes you think I talk to a guy?" She scoffs. "For all you know, I could be speaking to my - my Mom."
"For over a half hour?" He cocks his head to the side.
She rolls her eyes. "Fine. You got me."
Satisfied despite his rejection, he gives her a curt nod before heading back to his cubicle, on the other side of the room.
God. He reminds her of Abed.
(3) unsent drafts
(1)
composed 17:34
TO: Jeff
did you have a good time today?
(2)
composed 18:03
TO: Jeff
maybe when i get back to washington you could introduce me and grace. she seems super nice!
(3)
composed 23:56
TO: Jeff
you seem really happy with her
text sent 06:21
TO: Jeff
Grace seems so cool! You're lucky you're dating her ;)
"Step One of recovery is admitting you have a problem."
Yeah. She may have a slight problem.
