“Yeah, maybe.” She paused to drink. “Our dinner date seems like forever ago. I don’t want to do something every two years. We need to see each other more.”
I wanted to tell her that it sucked for me as much as it sucked for her. Maybe this sudden reunion was what we needed to realize how much we needed each other in our lives, and our texting would resume as frequently as it did the first year of college. I had no idea what our relationship would look like. It was one thing to talk a few times a week, knowing nothing was going to happen. We did a decent job keeping it platonic. We avoided our dating lives, probably because our wounds were still healing from our breakup. But this was different. At eighteen, we’d been on different trajectories. We’d wanted to experience college, meet all sorts of people, date those people, and get a better sense of what we wanted out of life. But at twenty-three, our trajectories had slowed. We had accumulated some life experience.
And if she was anything like me, the more I attempted to fit dating into my schedule, the more I got sick of it. I hated the blind dates from apps. I hated getting my hopes up on the first date only for there to be zero chemistry. I hated the games that came with it. I wanted to find someone who would be in it for the long haul, but out of the handful of girls I’d dated over the years, no one really stole all my thoughts. Not like Kennedy did.
“I agree,” I said and played with the water droplets on the side of my glass. “We should make sure life doesn’t get in the way again.”
Her eyebrows furrowed as she studied me closely. “Can I ask you something?”
Her tone was low, and her gaze was pleading. I noticed how the dusting of pink on her cheeks enhanced the green of those eyes that seemed to search for something in me. What was she searching for? I didn’t know. But I would tell her anything. She didn’t have to look that hard.
“What?” I said.
“Our dinner two years ago. Did you…did you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
She broke her stare and let it fall to her half-drunk cocktail. She cleared her throat and resumed stabbing her straw. “Us? Did you feel us?”
Another stomach flip. Forget about swimming. My stomach had mastered the art of dives and flips so well in just a week that I was pretty sure that together, we could have medaled at the ten-meter platform dive.
This wasn’t the time to play games. We had a few hours left before we separated. I had to assume that today was the only day to let her know how I felt, so maybe after the games, I could kiss her the way I’d been thinking about since we broke up.
“Anytime I’m with you, I feel us,” I said.
The pause between us piled on all the things I wanted to ask her. Did she think about me during all those years? What did she feel now? Was her stomach flipping like mine had been consistently since she called me? Did she see a future with me? Did she want to kiss me? Did she want me to kiss her? What did she want to come out of this whole day we were spending with each other?
“You know, I kinda thought that night would end with—well—I don’t know.” The redness from her cheeks consumed her face and neck, and it seemed like she wrestled with whether she should continue. I was on the edge of my seat, hoping she would tell me at least one thought, just the smallest glimpse of what was going on in her head. “I…um…I thought that, you know, that maybe the night would end with us…I don’t know…kissing or something.”
Now it was my turn to feel the sun color my face. I couldn’t even look her in the eye, I was that nervous. Instead, I focused on the lemon slice floating in my cup and used my straw to stab it. My nerves had to escape somehow, so I’d abuse some fruit. When life gives you lemons during your conversation with your high school sweetheart, stab the lemon so you don’t have to look her in the eye and let her know how easily you melt around her.
“Honestly, I thought about it the whole night,” I said through my arid throat.
“Really?”
I nodded. “I know there was a moment in the car when I dropped you off, and you waited a second before opening the door. I knew what you were waiting for.”
“Then why didn’t you do it?” Her tone seemed irritated, and I couldn’t blame her. I was irritated too. “You think I would have said no?”
When I glanced up, her eyes were back on me, still searching. I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I muttered as the shame stacked in me again. “I was dumb and scared. We would have kissed and then what? I fly back here?”
That question still applied if we found ourselves encapsulated by another moment tonight.
Just then, the waitress brought our food. Kennedy had ordered a crab cake sandwich with a pile of fries, and my wedge salad with vinaigrette looked like the depression it was. I was so sick of salad; every salad for the rest of my life would send me into a depression. Only two more weeks until the forbidden foods diet started.
“Your meal looks really sad,” she said, shoving a fry in her mouth.
“I know. I think I just started having an existential crisis.”
She dangled a fry in my face. “Look at this? Doesn’t it look delicious?”
“You’re being mean, and you’re going to hell.”
“Of course I’m going to hell. Mike Pence has a special seat saved for both of us. Do you want to wash your salad down with this amazing piña colada? It has the perfect balance of coconut and rum. My stomach is so happy right now. Is yours?”
“No,” I whined. “And I really hate you right now.”
“No, you don’t. Quite the opposite.”
All the talk about dinner two years ago never came back up, even though during every shift in conversation, I hoped it would. But even if it never found its way back to the table, that didn’t mean that we weren’t reminded of all the history we had. After she allowed me to pay for lunch, since I begged for the check, we watched the sea lions barking as they soaked up the sun. She squeezed my arm when trying to get my attention about a sea lion being extra adorable.
We found electric scooters and zoomed down the remaining shops at Fisherman’s Wharf. Sometimes she’d stop to window shop, and I would circle her on my scooter and ruin her view. Or when I stopped and viewed the window display, she touched my arm or brushed her hand on my back to get my attention.
Our last stop was at a high-end jewelry store on the last block. A ring in the window caught her eye as we weaved around the crowd. After looking for a few seconds, she parked the scooter and said she had to go in. I followed.
“Oh my God, this is the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen,” she said, looking longingly at the glass display.
I’d never really noticed rings before because I didn’t wear jewelry. I spent the majority of my day in the pool, and wearing jewelry during a meet meant instant disqualification. But when I spotted the ring, I found myself entranced. She was right. It was stunning, platinum with a pear-shaped dark blue gemstone and round diamonds along the side of the band.
“Would you like to try it on?” the cashier asked. Her name tag said Carol, and she had dollar bills flashing in her eyes. Her smile was nice and wide.
“Yes, please!” Kennedy put it on her left ring finger and showed it off like someone who’d just got engaged. If it wasn’t for the teasing during lunch or all the arm squeezing and back brushing, I would have studied her hand and pretended I was equally interested. But all of those things had happened, and it tangled my thoughts into feelings burning low and deep in my gut. I think what did it for me was the fact that she showed off her left finger, sending my mind into this trance that the ring symbolized our engagement. Without even thinking, I caved in to the unknown force billowing between us and held her hand to take a better look. She relaxed her fingers. They were so soft, and I couldn’t help but let my thumb rub her hand as I pretended to study the ring when really, I was watching our hands together.