Chapter Fifty-three

THE ANDERCHRONICLES

By Me, Ellee

[WARNING: The following story has been rated FNF*]
*Fiction NOT Fact

"US"

“Us? Andy, w-what . . . what do you mean . . . exactly?”

He squirmed a bit, and coughed and sputtered and then coughed again, like I had just done.

“Well, Ellee . . .” He ran his fingers through what was left of his hair—he was definitely nervous about this subject. “ . . . I . . . uhhhhh, you know . . .”

“No, Andy . . .” I stated, all the while trying to establish eye contact with his averted eyes, which made him squirm even more, “I don’t know.”

He took a deep breath, and after holding it for a few seconds, blew it out his lips, inflating them a bit as the air rushed through. Seconds later, when he finally managed to let his eyes connect with mine, there was a slight furrow between them, like he was scared to admit what came next. Then, very cautiously he proceeded with,

“Well . . . you see . . . there’s you . . .” He paused to watch my response.

My eyes widened a bit as I waited for him to continue, “Yes . . . yes, go on, Andy.”

“ . . . and there’s me, . . . and then there’s . . . well . . . us.”

Another pause followed, only it was a much longer pause, like maybe it wasn’t a pause at all, but the end of his statement. Period. Nothing to follow.

“That’s it, Andy?”

“Well . . .yes . . . you get it, don’t you?”

“Actually, I don’t. I still don’t understand the US part.”

His hand was shaking when he spontaneously lifted it to disentangle a strand of my hair which had gotten caught in my lengthy, thick eyelashes, and which he had noticed as he was talking. But with his fingers being long, and the fact that they were shaking, he wasn’t able to perform such an intricately delicate task without accidently poking my eye in the process. When I clamped my eyes shut and reared back yelling, “Oww!”, he cried out, “Ohhh, Ellee, I’m soooooo sorry! Oh, now I’ve gone and hurt you! Ellee, really, I’m sorry, so veeeeery sorry!”

It was only a split second before he grabbed me and started kissing my eye to take away the hurt, but when his lips also ended up in my eye, I yelled out once again, only this time I added an involuntary, Andeeee!, which only made him feel worse, but which I didn’t mean to say, it just came out, but which still made him exclaim anyway,

“Now I’ve gone and done it again! DANG! Ellee, what can I say? You must think me an inept klutz!”

“It’s okay, Andy . . .” I hurried to add, “really it’s alright. I’ll be fine. You didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, I did! I hurt you. I would NEVER do that— not to you . . .” But before he had even finished the words, he was already pulling me close—really close, and hugging me tightly. And then he said,

“Are you okay?” He bent down slightly at that moment to examine the eye injury. “Let me see . . .” He lifted my chin.

“I’m fine, Andy—really. See . . .” I blinked several times to show him I could still use the eye, “ . . . it still works.”

Once he was satisfied that I had indeed survived the mishap, he said,

“Where were we?”

“ Well, actually, you were about to explain the us part”

“US?

“Yes, Andy . . . US.”

“I thought I already did that.” He was getting nervous, again.

“Andy, you did . . . but . . .”

“But what, Ellee?”

“But . . . but . . . I . . .well . . . Andy, could you be a little more specific?”

“How much more specific do I need to be? Ellee, there’s you and there’s me and then there’s . . . you know . . . US ”

I guess the expression in my eyes still conveyed confusion, but I wasn’t confused, I just wanted to make sure we shared the same definition of US. Seeing this, he ran his hand over his hair several times, as his eyes wandered over to the window. All at once his expression started glowing as a light came on.

“Look, Ellee,” he said, turning me toward the window, “you see this little drop of rain, right up here?” his finger was indicating which one, “it’s a separate droplet. Now just a few short millimeters away is another little raindrop, also separate. They haven’t met yet. But they soon will—you watch.”

We both concentrated intently on those two little raindrops, waiting for their imminent encounter. When it finally happened, Andy shouted out,

“Did you see that!?” He turned to me with excitement dancing in his baby blues. “Do you know what happened just now? Ellee they—"

"Andy, I know exactly what happened," I interrupted enthusiastically, glad for the chance to explain what I had just witnessed. "There was a microscopic separation of the positive and negative charge centers in each droplet of rain, causing a very strong intermolecular attraction between all those little water molecules, and that in turn caused residual electrostatic van der Waals bonds, leading to a net attraction between the polar molecules, which resulted in the cohesion of those two separate drops of water, thus joining them together in a dipole moment."

"Noooooooooo, Elleeeeeeee, you're wrong!" he cried emphatically, "those two drops of water became an us." I looked at him, and he looked at me, and then I said,"Oh."

Well, I have to admit, it was true. At the bottom of the window those two drops of rain had definitely become an us. But almost before I could finish that thought, he dragged me over to the junk drawer at the end of the counter, and started rummaging through it until he found what he was searching for. Then, latching onto my hand, he pulled me to the table and had us both sit down next to each other.

At that time he produced two small cans of playdough, setting them atop the table. Then he looked up at me, a little twinkle in his eye—he knew I had no idea what he was doing, and that possibly I thought he had flipped his lid. But as it turned out, the only lid he had flipped was that of the pink playdough, after which he scooped out a piece of the dough and molded it into a ball. That done, he popped the lid on the second can, and dug out a chunk of blue, also forming a ball. He then held them both up for me to see, first the pink, and then the blue. Then, right there in front of my eyes, he squished and squeezed and squashed them together. Once he was finished, he handed his creation to me and said,

“Now, I want you to separate the blue from the pink.” His eyes were still twinkling as his focus switched from the playdough to me.

So I took the blended gob of dough and tried to separate the two colors, but of course it proved impossible, so I said,

“Andy, I can’t.”

“Of course you can’t! And do you know why you can’t, Ellee?”

“Because, Andy, you squished them together.”

“No, no, no . . . NO! Ellee, it’s because they became an us, and true us-es can never be separated!” He punctuated the whole thing with a hand slap on the table, causing the little cans to jump. Then he beamed a very pleased-with-myself-for-that-unique-explanation type of smile and said, “Now do you understand about US?”

Well, it would have been a lot clearer if he had just said, Ellee, I love you more than life itself, and I never want to be separated from you—NOT EVER! But I decided to settle for the raindrops and playdough, so I said,

“Yes . . . well, I think so."

"Good!" he quickly added, "that's settled. Now for part B of this discussion . . ."

For this he moved his chair closer to mine and suddenly became more serious. His eyes were carefully searching mine as he asked,"Ellee . . . what I need to know now is, do you think there is an US?"

I didn't answer right away, and after only a short moment, he became impatient.

"Ellee. . ."

The ball was definitely in my court at this point, and he wanted an immediate return."Well, Andy . . . I don't really know if —"

"What do you mean, you don't really know? Ellee, how can you saaaay that?"

"Andy, let me finish . . . I don't know if there is an US—we've never even had a date."

"A DATE? . . . Ellee, a date? Why do you say that?"

"Because," I responded, folding my arms firmly in front of me, "you've never ask me for a date, unless, of course, you count rat hunting. I mean, you did ask me to go rat hunting with you, but you also made it quite clear that it was not a date."


"I did?"


"Yes, you did."

"Well . . . I . . . I would think, I mean . . . that probably counts as a date . . . and what about when I asked you to go with me to plant my Christmas tree? You would have to say that was a date."

"No, it wasn't—your mother was with us."

"Oh . . . well then . . . what about . . ." I watched as his eyes searched some unseen files. All of a sudden he came to one and pulled it out. " Okay . . . what about my Valentine party, huh . . . huh? What about that?"

"Ahhh yes, what about it? As I recall, you invited nineteen other women to that party as well as me."

"Hmmmm . . . I see your point. Well . . . I . . . "

He was looking a little sheepish at that instant as he screwed his mouth up in chagrin, but after a moment he smiled and continued on, "Ellee, my dear, sweet, very perceptive Ellee, would you do me the extreme honor of accompanying me to Chez Antoine's this evening for a dining experience you won't soon forget?"

With my eyes sparkling as much as his were at that moment, I decided maybe a certain amount of coyness would be fun at this point, so I hesitated a bit before answering,

"Well, Andy . . . I'm not sure if I'll be free this evening . . . I mean . . . " I noticed a slight hint of disbelief creeping into his eyes as my words reached his ears. " . . . actually, Leonardo called a little while ago and—"

"Elleeeeeeee . . . you're just kidding! Right? . . . Elleee? . . . Aren't you?

I lowered my head, allowing my eyes to gaze up at him, and then a mischievous little grin took over my already teasing smile as I said, "Well, I am scheduled to straighten my sock drawer this evening and—"

"Ellee!"

"Oh Andy . . . yes, of course I'll accompany you to Chez Antoine's this evening. I would be delighted."

"And what about Leonardo? That was only a joke, right? He didn't really call you."

"Actually he did call . . ."

" . . . And?"

"I told him I had to straighten my sock drawer."

Andy and I giggled for a couple of minutes and then, touching my shoulder, he said,

"Wait here, Ellee. I'll be right back."

He was gone only a moment, returning with a box wrapped in shiny black paper, and tied with a poofy, white satin bow. He set it down in front of me, grinning so widely his dimples were dancing.

"I bought something for you, Ellee."

"Oh Andy, it's so beautifully wrapped. And the gold sticker says it comes from, Sweet Hearts. But I'm not familiar with that store." I looked up at him. "What is it?"

"Resolution Number Fourteen."

"Well, I really don't recall what resolution number fourteen is."

"Then I guess you'll just have to open it."

However, when I reached for it, he grabbed my hand, stopping me. As he looked down at me, eyes sparkling like those diamonds next to my heart, he whispered, "Later." Then he lifted my hand to his lips, where he gently kissed each finger.

Bye for now,
Love,
Ellee