The digital clock on the floor next to my mattress reads 5:42.
It’s time.
I put on a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt, along with my usual black skirt and black-and-white striped stockings. Most of my clothes, aside from my work uniform, are frayed and faded. I shop mostly at thrift stores and Goodwill, and because it’s difficult for me to find comfortable clothes, I tend to keep them until they literally fall apart.
I walk to the park. The pond is gray and empty of ducks; the air is still and cool. Stanley is sitting on his usual bench, facing away from me. His hair is almost curly, I notice. In the back, where it’s longest, it falls into loose waves.
I don’t know what gives me away—maybe he hears a twig creak under my foot—but after a few minutes, he raises his head and looks over his shoulder. My heart lurches into my throat. Quickly I lower my head. Sweat dampens my palms as I slowly approach and sit down next to him, not looking up.
“Alvie?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Hello.”
He’s wearing khakis and a polo shirt under a blue windbreaker, and he has a crutch tucked under his right arm instead of his usual cane. His cast peeks out from beneath his pant leg. After a few seconds of silence, he draws in an unsteady breath. “I was worried you wouldn’t show up.”
“I said I would.”
“Yeah. You did.” He holds out a hand. “It sounds strange to say ‘pleased to meet you,’ but, well . . . hi.”
I hesitate before grasping the proffered hand, then let go quickly, as if I’ve touched a hot pan. If he’s offended by my discomfort with touch, he doesn’t show it.
“You know,” he says, “it’s funny. You look just the way I imagined.”
For the first time, I meet his gaze. And I can’t stop staring.
His eyes are blue. Not just the irises. The sclerae—the whites—are tinted a misty blue gray, like the interior of a seashell I once found on the beach. This is the first time I’ve been close enough to see, and for a few seconds, I can’t breathe. My voice comes out as a thin whisper. “Your eyes—”
There’s a subtle change in his face, a stiffening of the muscles, and I stop.
I should say something else. I reach for words, but nothing comes.
When I talk to someone, I have to run my answers through various filters in my brain to see if they’re appropriate. Online, the frequent pauses in my speech aren’t a problem, but this is different. I’m sitting next to Stanley, the person I’ve been talking to every night for the past couple of weeks, and I have no idea what to say.
I start to rock lightly back and forth on the bench. I can’t help it. One hand drifts up to tug on my left braid. Several yards away, near the base of a tree, a rabbit grazes on yellowed grass.
And then the babbling starts.
“You know,” I say, “lots of people think rabbits are rodents, but they’re not. They’re lagomorphs, along with hares and pikas. Lagomorphs are herbivorous, where rodents are omnivorous, and lagomorphs have four incisors in their upper jaw instead of two.”
He blinks.
The words run out of me in a stream, filling the silence the way air will rush in to fill a void, and I can’t stop: “Another thing about rabbits. They have no paw pads. They have a layer of thick fur to cushion their feet instead. They’re one of the few mammals with paws but no pads.” I keep tugging on my braid. I know that I look and sound completely crazy, but I can’t help it. The more nervous I am, the worse it gets.
The rabbit lopes another yard away and continues grazing obliviously.
He clears his throat. “That’s . . . um . . .”
“‘All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.’” My voice comes out singsongy, like I’m saying a nursery rhyme. “‘And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you.’”
Silence.
It’s over. It’s barely been five minutes, and already I’ve ruined this. Maybe I should just get up and walk away, spare him the discomfort of making an excuse to leave—
“Watership Down,” he says.
My body stops rocking; the breath freezes in my throat.
“That book about the talking rabbits,” he continues. “That’s what it’s from, isn’t it? That quote? The sun god says that to the rabbit prince. What’s his name, again?”
“El-ahrairah,” I murmur. I look at him from the corner of my eye, clutching my arms. “You’ve read Watership Down.”
“A long time ago. Is that where the name in your email address comes from? ThousandEnemies?”
“Yes.”
He smiles. “I thought that sounded familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. I loved that book.”
I look down at my feet, fidgeting. Then I take my Rubik’s Cube from the pocket of my hoodie and twist it around. I know it’s rude to play with a puzzle while you’re talking to someone, but having something to do with my hands keeps me calm. If I didn’t carry this thing around, I’d probably have taken up smoking by now.
“You know,” he says, “usually I’m the quiet one. I mean, when I’m talking with my coworkers, it’s not a conversation so much as them telling me things while I nod along. I like to think that’s because I’m a good listener. But sometimes I feel like I could be replaced by a mannequin and not have it affect the conversation much.”
I hunch my shoulders and continue twisting around the Rubik’s Cube. “Do you feel that way with me.”
“No.”
The cube rests motionless in my hands.
Fading daylight reflects off the planes of his angular face, with its sharp features and high cheekbones. His hair is not exactly brown, I decide. It’s more muted gold, the color of wheat. His eyes briefly meet mine, then his long eyelashes sweep down, hiding them, and a light flush creeps into his cheeks.
The rabbit lopes a few yards away from us and keeps nibbling at the grass. He watches it. “I’ve always wondered . . . what do they eat in the winter? Rabbits, I mean. The grass and leaves are all dead then, right?”
“They eat bark and dried grass,” I reply. “They also consume their own feces. Food is partially digested and expelled directly from the cecum.”
“That’s . . . interesting.”
I pick at the edge of one thumbnail. “It’s called cecotrophy.”
“I’m kind of glad humans don’t do that.”
I slip the Rubik’s Cube back into my pocket. The last traces of daylight are fading from the sky. There’s only a thin orange sliver of sunlight on the horizon, shining through the branches. Stanley’s long, thin hands are folded over his crutch. “I’m glad I got a chance to meet you.”
There’s an odd flutter, like a moth trapped in my chest.
The last wisp of sunlight disappears. The air feels very still, and there’s a hollow sensation in my stomach, as if I’m looking off the top of a tall building. And I realize—if I’m going to ask him, it has to be now. If I put it off any longer, it won’t happen.
“Do you like sex,” I ask, staring straight ahead.
There’s a long pause. “Do I . . . what?”
“Like sex,” I repeat, enunciating the words slowly. My arms are crossed over my chest.
“Uh . . . why do you ask?” His voice sounds a little unsteady.
“Because,” I reply, still staring ahead, “I was wondering if you would have sex with me.”
When I finally look at his face, his eyes are wide and a little unfocused. A few beads of sweat stand out on his forehead, and he dabs them away with his sleeve. “Y-you mean . . . are you talking hypothetically? Like if we were on a desert island or we were the last two people in the world after a nuclear war or—”
“I’m asking if you want to have sex with me tonight.”
His mouth opens and closes several times. “You’re serious.”
“Do I seem like I’m joking.”
“You want to have sex with me,” he repeats. “Tonight.”
“Yes.” I wonder if I’ve done something wrong, if I asked incorrectly. Or maybe he’s just disgusted at the idea. I sit motionless, shoulders hunched, arms crossed.
His grip tightens on his crutch. He takes a deep breath and rubs his brow. “Sorry. I just—didn’t expect this.”
My breathing quickens. I take the Rubik’s Cube from my pocket and start playing with it. That look. I’ve seen that look before. The voices of former classmates echo in my skull. Weirdo.
I twist the Rubik’s Cube faster. My fingers are slick with sweat. It slips from them and bounces off the ground, and I don’t pick it up.
He hasn’t spoken for almost thirty seconds. I feel sick to my stomach. “Go on,” I whisper. “Say it.”
“What?”
“I’m a freak.” My voice comes out stiff and tight. This is bad. I have to get out of here before the situation worsens. I lurch to my feet and begin to walk.
“Wait!”
I keep walking.
He’s still calling my name, following me. Soon, he’s panting for breath. His footsteps are unsteady, broken by the muffled thump of his crutch. What is he thinking, running after me with a broken leg? I turn around just in time to see his foot slip on the muddy grass, and then he’s falling.
Before I have time to think, my body reacts. I lunge forward and catch him. He slumps against me, gasping. His heart bangs against his ribs. It feels like a small animal trapped in a box, beating itself against the side in its struggle to escape. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been close enough to feel another person’s heartbeat.
“Are you okay?” he asks, breathless.
“Yes,” I reply, just as breathless. I think it’s strange that he’s asking me that when he’s the one who tripped.
I realize that the lengths of our bodies are pressed together, and panic flashes through me. I pull away, pick up his crutch, and hand it to him, all without looking at his face. Then I turn and keep walking, but he catches my wrist. My whole body goes rigid at the shock.
I look at his fingers, pressed against my skin. My breath comes short and sharp. My nerves are blazing, tingling; his fingerprints are soaking through my skin, down into my bones, into my DNA.
I speak, my voice low and hoarse: “Let me go.”
“Alvie.”
“Let me go.”
“You’re not a freak,” he says firmly.
Suddenly my feet are rooted to the spot.
He looks down at his hand, still locked around my wrist. Slowly—as if it takes an effort—he uncurls his fingers, one by one. I clutch my hand against my chest, the skin still tingling where he touched. But I don’t run away.
My fists unclench. A wave of dizziness rolls over me, and I am left feeling like the wind has been knocked out of my mind.
“Let’s talk about this,” he says. Then, more softly: “Please.”
We return to the bench and sit. I grip my knees, shoulders tense, gaze fixed on my faded black sneakers. “If you don’t want to have sex with me, you can say so. I won’t be offended. That—that isn’t why I reacted that way. It’s just—the way you were looking at me—” I take a breath. “Never mind.”
He bites his lower lip. His knuckles are white on his crutch. “Listen. I . . . it’s not that I don’t want to. But I didn’t expect you to just ask. People usually go on a few dates first.”
“People have one-night stands.”
“Yeah, but this is different. We’re not two strangers hooking up in a bar.”
“Yes or no.”
Several times, he opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, then closes it again. “Let me take you out to dinner,” he says at last.
Dinner. That seems manageable. Slowly, cautiously, I nod. “Where.”
“Is there anyplace you like? I don’t know too many nice restaurants, but I think there’s a French place around here that’s supposed to be good.”
I’ve never had French food. There’s only one restaurant I go to, a small diner a few blocks from my apartment that serves pancakes twenty-four hours a day. “Buster’s.”
“Really?”
I nod.
“Okay. Buster’s it is.”
My Rubik’s Cube is still on the damp grass. I pick it up and clean it off on one edge of my hoodie. It’s just as well that we’re going out to eat, because I have some questions I need to ask him. I’m still not sure if this is going to happen. He hasn’t exactly said yes, but he hasn’t said no, either.