I knew he was vegan.
They were all vegan.
Anarchist-vegan-punk-rockers who wrote for online fanzines and wanted to change the world in ways I frankly thought were insanely naive at best and dangerously delusional at worse. Although, at that point in time, I would forgive Alex had he started World War Three singlehandedly, in that very room.
“Yeah,” I heard myself blurt out, rather haughtily. “Actually, I’m vegetarian, but I just stopped eating eggs and honey. So. Yeah. Vegan. Totally. That’s me.”
I’d actually had an omelet that morning and still sneaked McNuggets whenever my dad brought McDonald’s home and I knew no one would catch me eating it, but whatever. I still did better than the rest of humanity.
Alex was about to say something when Ryan pushed the door open. The hatred I felt toward Ryan at that moment shocked me. This was Ryan! My best friend!
…and also the guy who just interrupted Alex and me.
In the span of minutes, he became the odd one out, because I wanted nothing more than Alex’s approval.
And words.
And thoughts.
I idly wondered, if we had kids, would they have my blue eyes and his blond hair? Or my brown hair and his hazel eyes? I really wanted them to have his eyes. Kind of hazel.
“Hey,” Ryan said. “You met Lara.”
Alex didn’t turn to face him. He was still looking at me. But not in the same way I suspected I was looking at him. He was intrigued, not starstruck. And also a little annoyed, I suspected. That he had to talk to people.
“Yeah,” Alex said.
Ryan began gelling his frizzy hair. “Leave her alone. She is not a groupie.”
Even I knew Alex would take that as a challenge. And I didn’t know Alex at all.
I could actually feel the moment Alex decided not to leave me alone precisely because Ryan wanted him to.
That was the day I switched to veganism for a dude.
Not knowing that in the upcoming weeks, months, years, I would look back and think…veganism is not even on the list of top fifty insane things I did for Alex.
The three of us gathered our stuff (meaning the boys collected their backpacks and I shoved my tongue back into my mouth, because, as mentioned before, Alex was stunning), and we made our way out to Alex’s car to hit the road.
And then, lo and behold, another surprise.
Alex drove a Volvo.
One of those super suburban, soccer-mom type SUVs you see in Most Safe Rides lists every year. So anti-punk, I was surprised the vehicle didn’t come with a complimentary #MomLife bumper sticker.
The chuckle erupted from my body like a volcano. I couldn’t control it.
“Shut up, or walk there.” Alex scowled at me, unlocking the car.
Even the SUVs beep was feminine. I swear.
This, of course, only made me laugh even harder. Alex whipped his head to Ryan, pointing at him with his index finger. “Tell your little friend here to shut up.”
And Ryan, who was perhaps into me, but not into me enough to risk getting his body parts dismembered and scattered along the ocean, turned to face me, his throat bobbing with a swallow, and said quietly, “Hey, knock it off, will you? Alex doesn’t really have much of a sense of humor.”
No shit, Sherlock.
Needless to say, the rest of the drive (in the safe, totally uncool Volvo) was awkward as hell.
Alex and Ryan weaved in and out of safe small talk topics about their mutual friends, from the punk scene and Ryan’s old school, and I made myself as invisible as I possibly could, bobbing my head to the music in the background, all while internally coming up with a game plan to make Alex fall in love with me.
The plan, unfortunately, had a few holes in it. Namely:
Still inflated by adolescence and lack of life experience, my ego was approximately the size of the state of Iowa. It was beneath me to show a guy I was interested in that I was into him. I never got to the bottom of what made me so damn frightened of rejection, but my general policy when liking a guy was to ignore him as much as humanly possible, in the hopes this would somehow make him fall madly in love with me.
I’d very few opportunities to see Alex again. In fact, this was the first, and as far as I was aware, last time I was going to see the guy. And let’s admit it, there were more romantic settings for meet cutes than yelling in cops’ faces that meat is murder and milk is rape and eggs are child trafficking while standing knee-deep in cow shit on a ranch, while holding a sign with a picture of a goose with three chins.
When we got to the entrance of the farm/ranch (never could tell the difference between the two) in which the demonstration took place, I froze.