Page 2 of Moving Forward

Hence, thirty-seven.

Well, maybe. I’m pretty sure thirty-seven might also have been number six. Somewhere along the line, I think Ellie made a mistake. That or she has a type in mind for me.

I glance up at number thirty-seven, my eyes wandering from his face to his food. He doesn’t look familiar, nothing about him stands out to me. Yes, he’s attractive, but I only get the bland, melancholy feeling I had with numbers one through thirty-six. If I were to close my eyes, I probably couldn’t even recall his hair color. I can’t be sure of his name, either—Kraig or Greg? Like number six, number thirty-seven has been eating his food like a stubborn four-year-old, picking everything out of his salad and eating only the lettuce, after he tears it into tiny pieces. He’s also been droning on about the most grotesque trauma surgeries he’s witnessed, like that’s a good choice for dinner conversation. I haven’t touched my food all night.

I’d had enough of this the first time.

But maybe I want to find something wrong with him. Maybe I don’t want anyone.

He plucks out a lone tomato and throws it into the bowl beside his plate. The poor tomato probably thought it had evaded his frantic search. Too bad. He shoves the bowl to the corner of the table for the waiter, launching into a fresh story about something involving a pickax, which sounds vaguely familiar.

Why didn’t he just order the salad plain?

“Are you listening to me, Max?” he asks, snapping his fingers in front of my face. A little piece of lettuce parachutes from his thumb to the floor. I watch it fall, not bothering to answer him. I go on these dates because Ellie asks me to, not because I want to. I know she worries about me, and I want to make things easier for her. It’s just really hard to fake happiness when you can’t even remember what it feels like.

He reaches across the table with that same hand and runs his fingers along my thumb, which is busy holding my fork. My joints ache as I stare down at the contact, so foreign and so wrong. When I look up, he is smiling at me. Not like he’s caught me daydreaming and is wondering where my head is at, but like he’s letting me know what he expects after the date. As if a simple hand caress is a gateway to sex.

I answer by retracting my hand and cradling it in my lap. Is it possible for a touch to burn? No one ever feels right. Nothing feels right.

“I want to go home,” I whisper, terror setting in.

His hand immediately shoots back, his gaze going to the table, jaw tight. “Alright,” he says sharply. “Fine.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologize, rushing to my feet. He remains seated but looks up at me with a small, fake smile.

“It’s alright,” he says, although it’s obviously not. He throws down some cash since we haven’t ordered dinner yet.

“I’m just tired,” I tell him. “It’s been a long week.”

He raises his eyebrows at my blatant lie. I’m sure Ellie mentioned something about my free calendar to him. She doesn’t get how pathetic that makes me sound. It’s easy for her—she’s been dating the same guy since she was ten. To her, love is easy. She must think I’m inhuman for not feeling the same way.

“I really am sorry,” I whisper, staring down at my feet. What is wrong with me? Now that I really look at him, it’s obvious he’s cute—like really cute. Tall and lean, with curly brown hair and an expressive face that matches his charisma. Plus, he’s a doctor. This was what I’d always dreamed of: someone handsome and smart and nice.

He’s perfect, just not perfect for me. Not anymore, anyway.

He swallows, collecting himself, then shrugs. “I’ll take you home.”

“Thanks,” I say, mustering my best smile. He glances down at my hand, thinks better of it, and leads us out of the restaurant. The humidity outside hits me like a wall. Still, it’s better than being back inside where the air was constricting. Watching him with that lettuce made me want to stick a fork in my eye.

He’s a nice guy, I remind myself.

He fishes his keys out of his pocket when we reach his car. Neither of us bother to make conversation. I’m sure talking to me is the last thing he wants to do now.

He slides into the driver’s seat and starts the car. I stare at him from the passenger side until he looks up at me absently. “Oh,” he says with a jolt, reaching over the seat for the handle.

“No, it’s okay!” I exclaim, and quickly get in the car. I don’t need to further humiliate him by making him do gentlemanly date things. “I was just thinking—do you remember me?”

“Um,” he says, watching me closely. Like he’s wondering if I left my brain in the restaurant. “No. Your friend set us up, remember?”

“Yes, I remember. I mean, you do realize we went on a date before tonight, right?”

He shakes his head, reaching for his phone in the cup holder. “We couldn’t have. I’d remember that. I know I would.”

“We did. You wore that same burgundy tie with a little George Washington tie pin, and you talked about a surgery that involved a bike and a baseball bat.”

He glances down at his phone hesitantly. “What’s your last name?”

“Dawson.” Because evidentially the tie pin and the surgery aren’t enough to prove a point.

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