Chapter 2. Marty's Demons

"So what about you? We've heard my whole sordid story. Why do you think dating's so overrated?" Rory asked him.

"I'm not really basing that on anything in particular." Marty shrugged the question off, hoping to change the subject. The truth was, he didn't agree with the statement. That night, he and Rory were relaxing comfortably in a close proximity. It felt good. If Marty tuned out the conversation about her boyfriend woes, it was fairly easy for him to imagine dating Rory. Wrapped in the cozy haze of daydream, he could picture it being pretty great. But Rory's burning eyes encouraged him to join in on the love bashing, and, truthfully, Marty could relate to that as well. He'd had his share of dating pains.

"Are you basing it on anything in general?" she prodded in a way that wasn't entirely unwelcome.

Marty sighed. "I don't have a lot of luck with women," he admitted, finally throwing himself into the discussion.

"No? Why not?" came her gentle reply.

"Maybe I just haven't met the right girl yet," he dodged, studying the pillow on his lap and plucking at the thread again.

"But surely there've been girls you've liked."

"Oops!" wide-eyed Marty interjected, after having pulled on the thread a little too strongly. Three or four rows in the corner of the pillow had come loose. With guilt, he put the pillow away. "Well sure but…it never seems to work out the way I'd planned it. I've dated a bit but never really anything serious."

"Why not serious?"

With no pillow to focus his attention on, Marty took a moment to ponder the question. Why was it he'd never had any meaningful romantic relationships? It certainly wasn't for lack of interesting women, because Marty could readily think of at least a dozen or so girls who'd meant something to him at various times in his life. The more he thought about it, though, the more he sensed a pattern emerging. He'd only ever dated girls that he could distance himself from – a long line of casual, sometimes meaningless, dates. In between those dates were the truly special girls whom he'd never taken a chance on. And when he traced the pattern back through time, he remembered Julie.

Julie had been Marty's best friend until grade ten. After years of studying together and hanging out with her and their mutual friends, Marty had realized, in grade ten, that he'd had a crush on her. After living with those feelings in secret for a while, he finally got up the nerve to tell her. When he asked her out at Leroy Wilkinson's party one fateful evening, her devastating response had been that, although she thought Marty was a great guy, he was really better as a friend. Three months later, she'd begun dating Kenneth Grant who was "So cute!"

Of course Marty and Julie had decided to remain friends, but the die was cast. Marty no longer felt comfortable being near her, feeling the way that he did – and knowing, with great mortification, that his crush was out in the open and completely unreciprocated. After Marty's admission, things were strained between them, Kenneth became a real sore spot and, just like that, their friendship fell apart. He'd lost one of his best friends; it had all blown up because he'd asked her out. Even tonight, as Marty sat with Rory and was totally un-enamoured over Julie, he chastised himself.

Since then, Marty had held back when it came to girls he liked. It wasn't that he was scared to talk to girls; in contrast it usually came quite naturally to him. It was just that, since he'd blown things with Julie, Marty just hadn't had the confidence in himself. He never had faith in a girl's reciprocated love. It wasn't long after Julie that Marty had decided: he would not confess a crush on a friend unless he could be sure that she felt the same way. There was just too much to risk otherwise.

So the bulk of Marty's dates had been with girls with whom he'd shared little in common. There was less possibility of getting hurt that way. But this procedure had taken a toll on Marty as well. In his first and second years at Yale he'd met many interesting women and the truth was he was starting to get a little bit lonely.

That was partly the reason he'd asked Rory about her boyfriend at Asher Fleming's wake. It had been no piece of cake for Marty to spit out that tiny little question. His knees had been weak and his beer precariously close to slipping from his sweaty hand. But he'd asked it. It had been a small victory. Her response, though cryptic, had further spelled it out for him: she was not interested in flirting with Marty.

"To be honest, I'm finding that, a lot of the time, the girls I really like would rather just be friends," Marty murmured.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I just don't think I'm a 'date him' kind of guy," he grumbled. "I'm the guy they come to for advice about the guys they have crushes on." This very conversation is a case in point, he thought.

"I see."

"Like we'd start out as friends… but then my feelings change and theirs don't. It's like, I take that stroll down More-Than-Friends Lane and then turn around and they're still sitting behind in Hey-Just-Friends, Buddy-Ville! They're never on the same wavelength.

"And I've had crushes on my sister's friends before," Marty added, thinking of another additive to his introversion. "And my sister – half sister as it turns out – would tell them about it and they'd all roll on the floor laughing like I was so silly."

"That's mean," Rory empathized.

"Well, they were a year older than me. But still, it's like I'm just not that appealing to girls."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Oh yeah?" Marty wondered curiously. She shifted her position on his bed again and, when Marty realized she wanted to stretch out her legs, he placed them across his blanket-clad lap. While Rory looked much more comfortable afterwards, he spent the next few seconds trying to decide where he should put his arms. Finally he settled with draping them casually across her ankles.

"Yeah," she stressed. "You've got a lot to offer. I mean look at you; you're a great guy. You're really interesting, really considerate. You've got this cute, quirky sense of humour that I love. You have a lot to contribute to a relationship and you're good looking to boot. I don't know why you're so down on yourself."

For a moment, Marty sat back against the wall slack-jawed, stunned at all the good things she'd said about him. That same weak knee-ed feeling came over him and, perhaps ahead of himself, he began to wonder if this was the reciprocation he'd been waiting for. But before the adrenaline-rushed stupor drained out of his body, Rory went on, "I mean, I personally know how great a friend you are, I'm sure you have boyfriend potential also."

Marty blinked, starting to come down, though still somewhat in a daze. He realized she wasn't referring to herself. Trying not to let disappointment colour his words, he cleared his throat and spoke. "Well. I'm not bad, I guess. I don't know, I just I don't have the words to, you know… encourage them," Marty stumbled. "I don't have the words to… I just don't know what to say to a girl that I really like. And they never initiate anything..." Marty stopped as an idea occurred to him. "Do you think I discourage them? Women, I mean," he speculated. "Do you think I come across as too… something-or-other?"

"You come across as Marty. You seem like a well-rounded, great guy," she replied with conviction. "There's a lot to love about you, Marty. And if they don't recognize it, you can send them to my door and I'll personally give them What For."

Marty nodded numbly, her praise a double-edged sword. "I'm glad I have you in my corner."

"Anytime.

It's just as well that Rory doesn't feel the same way, he thought. Marty, had a suspicion that maybe it wasn't the best time for a relationship anyway. Rory was fresh from a break-up with someone she obviously cared about. And Marty, well, he probably needed to deal with his own demons first. Suddenly Marty felt a bit like he'd been put through a conversational wringer. "I love my dog," Marty commented wistfully, thinking of the buoyant manner with which his Labrador trotted inhis parents' yard. "He's so uncomplicated."

Rory, however, wasn't ready to drop the subject. "Do you let them know how you feel, Marty? Girls, I mean. Maybe they just don't know."

"I don't really know how to, I guess." Marty shrugged. "Now my brother… he's always been really good with girls. You could call him Lothario," Marty stated with due respect. "I just don't have the way with them that he does. It's no wonder he's only my half brother."

"You really look up to your brother, huh?"

"No. He's a moron. But he does have his good qualities. And luck with the ladies is one of them."

Rory chuckled but was still deep in thought. "Maybe you just need more practice asking girls out."

"Practice?"

"Yeah, practice," she stressed, certainty now flavouring her words. "You need to get on that horse, Marty! And I know I'm not an expert and my own love life is certainly less than inspiring, but maybe I can help. Is there anyone that you like right now?"

Marty blinked. "Uh. Yeah…"

"Ok. Dish. Tell me about her. What's her name? What's she like?"

Her sudden vigour caught Marty off guard. There was no way he could admit to Rory that she was the girl he liked the most. Suffering palpitations, he scrambled for an answer to give her. "D-Dawn," he said as soon as he could, naming a girl whom he knew only vaguely. He really wished he'd changed the subject when he'd had the chance.

"Ok." Rory smiled and sat up, her legs slipping smoothly off his lap, as though she and Marty were now getting down to important business. "And how do you know Dawn? Do you have any classes together?"

"Yeah. One." He shrugged again. He was decidedly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. "But I know her through Ultimate. She plays too. That's how I know her."

"Ultimate?"

"Ultimate Frisbee. The sport."

"Oh right, you mentioned that before. She plays with you and your guy friends?" Rory asked, curiosity covering her animated face.

"And other girls. It's a co-ed sport."

"Oh. I see. So… Dawn," she swooned. "Do you know her well?"

"Not really, no. I don't know her that well."

Surprised, Rory stated, "There must be something you know about her."

Marty really wished he hadn't dragged poor, innocent Dawn into a tangled web of lies. However, the way Rory was devouring the details he gave her, he felt unable drop the subject. He wracked his brain for some neutral item to reveal. "I know she wears her hair in a long braid a lot. It's blond."

"Okay…" Rory drawled, as though humouring him in his cluelessness. "That's a start. What else? What colour are her eyes?"

"I'm not sure what colour her eyes are."

"You mean you haven't stared longingly into them," Rory teased, half in jest. "Marvelling at how they're framed by the most perfect eyelashes?"

Marty laughed at her cute display. "Boy you really are a romantic, aren't you?"

"I'm just trying to get the scoop on her and you're not giving me much to work with here."

"Sorry. I really don't know that much about her."

"That's not good, Marty."

"It's not?"

"No!" Rory stressed, eyeing him like a predator. "You have some major work to do."

"I do?"

"Yes. You do. The next time you see her, I want you to chat her up a bit. Sit next to her in class; borrow her pen. Find out what you have in common – after the prof's done his lecture, of course," she added in true Rory fashion. "And the next time I see you I want you to be able to tell me what her major is," Rory ticked items off on her fingers. "What her favourite class is, her favourite movie, and song. And what colour her eyes are also," Rory stressed, excited at the prospect of new love. The only thing absent from Rory's girlish ramble was the dictation of soft sexy music to accompany Marty's seduction of poor, innocent bystander Dawn.

"And above all else," Rory added. "Show your stuff, Mister! When is the next time you see her?"

"On Monday."

"I'm gonna test you on Tuesday."

"Oh. Geez."

"And speaking of tests…" Rory segued, looking at her textbook.

"Right." Marty caught on to her train of thought and was nearly ecstatic to finally be changing the subject. "We have a pile of stuff to study if we're gonna be ready for that test on Thursday. We should really go over it some more tonight."

"Yes. We should," she said, cracking the book to chapter 9. "But don't think I'm letting you off the hook about Dawn. So, where were we?" Her voice trailed off as she flipped through pages. "Oh yeah, what started the war in 49 BC? And you're right, it had something to do with Rome."

"Umm…" Marty hummed, a look of pain crossing his forehead until a thought occurred to him. "Oh yeah. Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in 51 BC and then returned to Rome," he stressed with a finger point, excited to finally remember. "With his legions in 49 BC."

"Right! Now why was this a problem?"

"I don't know."

"Nooo…" Rory cooed, flipping through her notes. After giving Marty time to think, Rory answered, "Because commanders weren't allowed to take theirs soldiers outside their provinces without permission from the Senate."

"Right. Ah!" he cried in frustration. "I will never get this stuff!"

"Just keep plugging away at it. You'll get it. After all, Marty, Rome wasn't built in a day," she quipped.

"I'm really lacking your optimism."

"Well then sucks to be you, My Friend," Rory commiserated off-handedly.

Marty studied Rory's head, bent down over her textbook, and nodded. "You have no idea."

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