Page 18 of The Art of Catching Feelings

Much better. Hi.

You never told me what kind of plane traveler you are.

She’d been at the coffee shop for an hour and had maybe three hundred words to show for it, but she closed her laptop while she leaned back in her chair.

D: Seat back: never (I worry it’s rude??). Earbuds in: sometimes—I love a good audiobook on a plane. Window: also preferably (sorry!)

C: Why sorry?

Daphne wished she could go back and delete that part. She tried to think of a way she could spin it, where it didn’t seem like such an obvious slip, like if he’d said he preferred the right side of the bed and she’d said so did she. Not that she was thinking about what side of the bed he slept on.

She’d say she didn’t want him to think she was copying his answer. That was reasonable. She was starting to type it out when another message came in.

C: I’d let you have the window seat.

She bit her lip, unable to stop herself from smiling at that. This felt like a perfect opportunity for her to try out those rusty flirting skills, say something clever back, but her mind was a blank. His words sat there on her phone an uncomfortably long time before he followed them up with another message. She was relieved that the conversation had been brought back to a place that didn’t make her stomach flip; she was disappointed, too.

C: We just took off from LA twenty minutes ago.

So he was bored on a plane again. Maybe she should mind that he only seemed to text under those conditions, but she couldn’t bring herself to.

D: That’s an early flight. It’s such a weird feeling, isn’t it? Waking up in one state and then ending up 3,500 miles away by the end of the day. You’re probably used to it.

C: Yes and no.

She rolled her eyes at his nonanswer. If he was going to go back to that, she didn’t see the point in communicating at all. She thought about what Layla had said, about what a tough interview he was, but this wasn’t an interview.

But then a block of text came in.

C: There is a lot of travel in baseball—at least it’s by plane. In the minors, a lot of it is by bus, which could be a nightmare. The bus would break down, you’d never be able to get any sleep, etc. You adapt to whatever your current situation is. But there are always these little moments, where it all really hits you. Like now, the sky is streaked with orange and the clouds are so close. Yesterday, I was looking up from the field at Dodger Stadium, and I could barely see a strip of blue. Only rows and rows of people, going up so high it was like there was no sky at all.

As silly as it seemed, she’d never actually thought about what it would feel like, to be out there on the field in front of all those people. She supposed that was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place, heckling him at the game. She’d been like a toddler with her eyes closed, believing that if you can’t see them then they can’t see you. But the way he described it, shefelthow big that experience could be, how small it must make you feel.

C: What’s your name, by the way? I can’t put you in my phone as duckiesbooks.

Daphne’s fingers froze over her screen. There’d been a brief mention of her as the heckler in an article in the local paper—she didn’t know if he’d seen it, but she couldn’t give him her real namenow. So far she’d been able to justify her lies as ones of omission, but a fake name would be clear, deliberate dishonesty. She didn’t know if she wanted to take that step, but couldn’t think of what else to say.

D: Why not? First name Duckie, last name Books. :)

C: What does the S. stand for?

D: That’s a rather forward question. We barely know each other.

C: Duckie S. Books it is. Should I add Esq. to the end? Feels like a distinguished name like that deserves to be an esquire.

D: How do you know I’m not?

C:…Are you?

Daphne laughed. A lawyer! Her parents probably wished. Not because they’d ever been particularly pushy about education or high achievement—if anything, they’d been super laid-back when she was growing up, often forgetting to even ask to see a report card or progress report when she brought one home. But they’d like knowing that her job was more stable at least.

D: No, definitely not.

C: All I remember about your job is that you have to send invoices and sometimes it makes you cry.

That reminded her, she actually needed to follow up on another one. It had been a roundup of modern fairy-tale retellings for a popular book site, and had been so much fun to write she almost felt guilty for getting paid to do it.Almost. She was still going to get her fifty bucks.

D: That feels like an accurate summary tbh

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