number 2

You arrive 25 minutes early, the result of your obsession with being prompt for each and every engagement. If you’re being honest, a late entrance would also mean you’d have to walk toward him, revealing once and for all that your skirt does not look nearly as good in motion as it does perched atop a bar stool. You order a pre-emptive drink.

You powder your face with such alarming regularity that you’re quite sure your paleness rivals Ms. Kidman’s. More than once you hop to the bar for a napkin to expend nervous energy. You don’t yet smoke. You try to coax lip gloss from the bottom of its tiny bottle and you write.

You wait.

The clock you’ve checked every five minutes says he shows right on time. He stands close to your side. And when you lift your head, you know your face gives away that this week you’ve been biting your lower lip when you think about him. That yes, you await his emails and wish you could respond to his text messages, the ones he sends even though he knows your phone is broken and you won’t be able to respond. The ones he writes anyway, just to say hello. Because.

He leans in to you and whispers in your ear. He comments that you’re even cuter than he remembers, and you can’t believe that minutes ago you wanted to say the same thing to him. You break into the goofy type of smile that you regularly envy when it’s worn by others. And you’re reminded why, no matter how many times you swear it and every Air Supply song off for good, you choose to be in this wonderful place once again.