Page 68 of One Little Kiss
I stick another tiny morsel in my mouth and pretend to take an interest in the comings and goings of the patrons around us.
Patrons who are approximately three times older than us. Old married couples and friend groups who no doubt came to this stuffy, fancy restaurant after playing a rousing round of bridge.
Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against old people. It’s just…
What are we doing here? This is the kind of place Brad would’ve taken me. It’s the sort of place lawyers go to wine and dine clients or to impress their boss’s daughters.
It’s not the kind of place two high schoolers go to hang.
But it’s oddly sweet that Elijah is doing this for me. He went to the trouble of getting a reservation and making this plan for tonight, so I’m determined to go along with it with as much grace as I can muster.
I’m trying. I really am. It’s not my fault my mind is blank. Every time I open my mouth to say anything, I realize how lame it’ll sound and stop.
I feel like we’ve established some unspoken rule that we won’t talk about our friends. That would be too….friend-like, right?
Am I allowed to talk about dumb movies? Or is that a turn off on date night?
And good God are we really the kind of people who havedate nights?
I set my fork down because my thoughts are spiraling and my stomach’s starting to churn.
“So…” I say.
Elijah’s brows arch and his expression is way too eager. Almost desperate.
I know he feels it too, this awful awkwardness that’s making us both act so weird. I want to make a joke about it, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings.
Worse, I don’t think I can make a joke, because this isn’t laughable. Honestly, it’s taking everything in me not to cry.
At his expectant look, my mind goes blank again, and I have to scramble. “Have you, um…have you thought any more about what college you’ll apply to?”
He stares at me in surprise for a moment and I feel my cheeks start to burn.
If he’s talking to me like I’m my grandma, then I’m talking to him like I’m his guidance counselor. Which is…not better. At all.
He clears his throat. “Not yet. I’m still…weighing my options.”
I nod. And that’s all I got. A nod.
“You?” he says with that same overly polite tone.
“Oh, um…” I shake my head, years of mortification piling on top of the mountain of sadness that’s building inside me.
What have we done?
I’m sitting across from my best friend and he might as well be a stranger.
I knew this would happen. I knew it.
He’s waiting for an answer so I blurt out the truth. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if I can get into college.”
He looks stricken again.
And I am ruining this night for him. He brought me to this fancypants, exclusive, stupidly expensive restaurant to try and have some elegant, romantic evening, and I’m ruining everything because I don’t know how to be this person.
Not with him.
With a guy like Brad? Yes. All day long. I’d be flirting and laughing and making small talk like a freakin’ champ.
