The Unexpected Everything

“A game?” I asked, hitting my straw on the table to shuck off the wrapper.

“Yeah,” he said, a small smile starting to form on his face. “My dad’s really into the idea of mind over matter, that you can conquer your body’s reactions through discipline,” he said, shaking his head. “So one night when we were all at a restaurant—my mom and my sister too—I challenged my dad to order something with jalape?o in it. And he said he would if I would too. And then it kind of turned into a competition.”

“So who won?” I asked, taking a sip of my soda.

Something faltered in Clark’s smile for a second, and he pulled his glass toward him. “Still ongoing.”

“Well, you’ll have to tell him you ate this Reaper thing.”

Clark nodded. “Right. Sure.”

We both took sips of our sodas in unison, and then silence descended again. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him something about his family—like how old his sister was or what his parents did—but then I hesitated when I realized that if I asked him about his family, he’d probably want me to talk about mine.

Clark leaned forward, and I racked my brain quickly for some safe topic, something that we had in common. Usually with the other guys I’d been on dates with, there was shared experience. We had bosses or teachers to complain about, friends to gossip about, something mutual to provide help for these early conversations. I realized after a second that the only thing Clark and I really had was the dog. “So,” I said cheerfully, cutting him off right as he was starting to speak, “how’s Bertie doing?”

Talk of the dog, and his quirks, got us through the chips and into the meal. Whenever Clark would start to ask me something more personal, I would steer the conversation back to safer subjects—Bertie, the restaurant, the weather, the upcoming batch of summer movies. And the food itself became a subject when we started eating. I watched with alarm as Becca placed Clark’s food in front of him and braced myself when he took the first bite. But although he turned a little red and it looked like his glasses fogged up the tiniest bit, he soldiered on, and by the time he’d eaten most of his burrito, three of the kitchen staff, two of the waiters, and a busboy were lingering around our table watching him do it.

I offered to split the dinner check, but Clark insisted and paid with a silver credit card. Becca offered him a half-price discount on their DON’T FEAR THE REAPER T-shirt, but Clark passed, and when we got back to his car, he started driving right back to my house. I sat in the front seat of his Jeep, looking at the vacuum lines on the floor mats that indicated it had recently been cleaned, with the growing and undeniable feeling that this had not been a good date. I didn’t think it was my fault—I’d tried to keep the conversation light and fun, but it was like Clark had just been going along with it, like he wasn’t really having a great time. As I tried to figure out what was different, it occurred to me that most of the time when I was sitting in a restaurant across from a boy, we knew each other better and the date had honestly felt sometimes like a formality before we got to the making-out part at the end.

As we drove along in silence, I realized that things were always so much simpler once you entered the post-make-out stage of a relationship. After you’d kissed someone, it became all inside jokes and cute references, and everything else was overridden by the need to kiss the person again. This haze softened everything and made it all easier. But it really didn’t seem like that was going to be in the cards for tonight. I was hoping we could get out of this with minimum awkwardness, so we could pretend we’d gone out tonight as friends—friends who, it turned out, didn’t have all that much to say to each other.

But it was too bad, I realized, as I looked at his profile, lit up by his dashboard light. He was really, really cute. And he seemed nice. But apparently, somehow, that wasn’t always enough. (I made a mental note to be sure to tell Toby, since this seemed to run counterintuitive to everything her Rom-Coms had told her.)

Clark slowed, signaled, and pulled into my driveway, and I felt myself let out a small sigh of relief. This strange date was almost over. It was still early—I could regroup, then find out where my friends were and meet up with them. I could still salvage the night, after all.

He pulled to a stop and put the car in park but didn’t turn off the engine or make any move to walk me to my door—which I was glad about. This didn’t need to get any more uncomfortable than it currently was. “So, thanks for dinner,” I said with a big smile, gathering up my purse, hand already hovering near the door handle. “I had a really nice time.”

Across the car, Clark looked at me for a moment. “You did?” he asked, sounding baffled.

Oh god. I could feel myself getting frustrated. That was just something you said, not something you actually meant. Most people understood that. I didn’t like going to Tom’s sketch comedy shows or my dad’s fund-raisers. But that didn’t mean I told either of them that. “Sure,” I said, keeping my smile in place.

Clark looked at me for a second longer, and by the dashboard light, I could see confusion knitting his brow. “I just . . . ,” he said slowly, then shook his head. “I mean, it was like you didn’t want to talk to me.”

I drew back slightly in my seat. Why were we recapping this? We’d clearly both had a bad time, so why weren’t we moving on? I had tried to talk to him, all night. He was the one who hadn’t wanted to talk about any of the subjects I brought up.