Anni – An Unwilling New Start | Part 5

"Anni’s in looooove!" Since my meeting with Sebastian at Max, Stephanie hadn’t stopped bombarding me with WhatsApp messages, with silly little quips and endless heart-, kissing- and cuddling- emojis popping up on my display all day long. And she was right, wasn’t she? As Sebastian arrived at Max, my heart had been beating like crazy. I had blamed it on my stupid show with the crutches and the bandage, or the fear and utter embarrassment that the entire deception would be revealed. But maybe the feeling had just been butterflies in my stomach? Regardless of how I felt my feelings should be defined, I had spent a wonderful, fun afternoon with him. Sebastian hadn’t mentioned the fact that he had been ignoring me the days previously; just as he didn’t comment on my "torn ligament". At first it had irritated me that he hadn’t mentioned my injury even once, but as our conversation continued to progress, I completely forgot about it. I had been completely concentrated on our exchange; raving about Stuttgart, and Sebastian asking interested questions. We had discovered several common hobbies, and characteristics we both possessed, had joked around, and my naturally shy manner had vanished within minutes. My bandaged foot – which I had unmistakably displayed on the chair in front of me, now padded by yet another seat cushion that the nice waitress had given me – he hadn’t even glanced at once. Not even when I wiggled my toes again and again (as Stephanie had instructed me). When I went to the bathroom in between, and also as we left – he had driven me home after about four hours together – he had been courteous and helpful, handing me the crutches and helping me in and out of the car. Everything without any kind of weird observation or remark.
"What does it mean though?" I had asked Stephanie on the phone afterwards. "It seems like he's just a normal guy, without any kind of foot fetish or anything! I feel so stupid because of my fake injury now." "Don’t be silly!"- Stephanie was much more relaxed about the whole situation. "Becaaaause, at least it made sure you guys met up, didn’t it?"
That was exactly the question I couldn’t stop thinking about. Had Sebastian written me the note in history class only because I had appeared with crutches, or did he just happen to write me a note anyway? "If only I were as level-headed as Stephanie!" I thought - she probably would have just asked him. Of course, in the days following our little date, I had to continue to play the injury card for a while, in order to be credible. Luckily the P.E. classes were cancelled that week; otherwise I might have had to submit a medical certificate, which of course I didn’t have. On the following Saturday however, I finally decided that I was now "restored to health" again. Although I was now able to walk on the crutches like a pro, I was glad to finally have the normal freedom of movement again, and that I no longer had to worry about my parents seeing me with my “sprain”. Also, I had a date with Sebastian on Saturday night - he had asked me after our afternoon at Max whether we wanted to do something together on the weekend. Of course I had agreed, and was also just glad to end this embarrassing act, as well as my constantly distrustful thoughts. After all, everything I had talked about with Stephanie; about Sebastian's hypothetical fetish, seemed to be complete nonsense. Still, I couldn’t pretend that I was fully fit for the day. So I decided to limp heavily during our date to realistically portray the final stage of my "injury". Sebastian picked me up and we drove to Hannover. He wanted to show me the city a little, and we had selected a movie for afterwards – but as we were already talking non-stop as we had at Max, we decided to abandon the movie idea, as we would rather continue to talk than just silently stare at a screen. Instead we drove to the Masch Lake and walked slowly along the shore. I was careful to put weight lightly on my right foot, although it was hard not to forget about it at time, because in the meantime I had to admit that I really did have a crush on Sebastian. I liked the way he combed his hand through his already tousled hair when he talked, and how he gestured wildly with his hands as he described something to me.

As we were talking about different university courses in Hannover and Stuttgart, Sebastian suddenly changed the subject. "Ummm, I just wanted to say, I feel really bad about avoiding you after what happened at P.E. that day." We were just walking across a viewing platform on the lake shore, from which a staircase led to the actual promenade. I looked up at him in surprise as we continued to walk side by side towards the stairs. Would he still explain his strange behaviour from those few days? Immediately my questioning thoughts set in again. After a few more steps Sebastian looked at me with a frown. "You’re not limping anymore!" he stated with genuine amazement. At that moment I was so shocked my heartbeat stopped for a moment. How stupid of me to keep thinking about his behaviour, when actually I was the one who had done something wrong by fooling him with my fake injury! And now the whole embarrassing situation would be revealed, just because I was too stupid to properly finish what I had started. "I..." I began. But we had continued walking and were now standing halfway down the stairs from the viewing platform. In that moment the shock of everything possibly being discovered spread through me completely, and I missed a step and then rolled my right foot over on the next. There was a cracking sound. I shrieked. Sebastian jumped forward to catch me...