The Danger of Sneezing III

Once we got back to the building she walked with me to my apartment door and then headed to her own apartment. Call me a traditionalist but this seemed a bit odd to me, I always thought it was the guy who walked the girl home. I waited the rest of the day for something good to happen but nothing did, I couldn’t think that my affliction was gone; I could only conclude that something good had happened and I hadn’t noticed.

Just because nothing good had seemed to happen on Sunday when I sneezed on Saturday didn’t mean that I started sneezing to test if I still was cursed. It wasn’t until Wednesday therefore that I sneezed again. I was cleaning my closet and some dust got up my nose, there was nothing I could do to stop the sneeze. I therefore wasn’t that surprised when I found a letter shoved under my door that night when I got home from work. I instantly realized why it was that Bethany had walked me to my door, it was so she would know where it was in the building I lived, and now she wanted me to come to dinner.

Now I was torn about what to do. I seemed destined to keep bumping into Bethany, I mean we both road the bus, lived in the same apartment building, and went to the same church, we were bound to keep bumping into each other. If I dismissed her and tried to ignore her it would be bound to get awkward. On the other hand, though she obviously wanted to be friends, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be friends with her; I couldn’t stop thinking that she was a little odd. Still, I decided that I would take her up on her invitation, I knew too little about her to actually dislike her.

I refrained from sneezing for the rest of the week, so I felt a lot better when I rung Bethany’s doorbell on Friday night. She answered it, and smiled at my offering of a loaf of bread I had picked up from a bakery when I had come from work. The table was lovely; she was clearly an amazing cook. Not to mention that she had done a lot with the apartment itself. It was of the same layout as my little apartment but it looked so much nicer then I had managed.

The details of dinner aren’t really that important, though I will admit that Bethany and I got much friendlier then I would have imagined before dinner. The bottle of wine probably helped, things got a little fuzzy after a while. I think Bethany knew exactly what she was doing but I found I didn’t really mind. In fact, in what I imagine were probably very slurred words, I even told her about my sneezing problem. Even in my fairly drunk state I expected her to laugh at me, or kick me out of her apartment, but she didn’t do either, she just nodded.

After that things got very blurry, I think I had another couple of cups of wine, and I woke up the next morning still dressed in the clothing I had worn to Bethany’s apartment, in my own bed. I thought about calling Bethany all that day, to apologize for having drunk so much the night before, but I didn’t have her number. I could of course go over to her apartment and apologize in person, but that seemed awkward. In the end I decided that I would just wait until I saw her at church the next day. I was starting to think I knew what good had happened the last Sunday, it was just a vague feeling, but it felt good.

I have to admit that I hardly paid attention to any of the sermon the next day. Bethany was sitting right next to me, which was tempting, but she had come in only right before the service began which hadn’t given the chance to do anything except trade hellos. I almost jumped like a child let out of school early when the service was finally concluded.

To be continued...