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Not that dude last weekend, and definitely not—
“How’s Sam doing?’ she asked hopefully.
I remembered how he was bleedingblue.How he refused to go to the hospital because he had that phobia or whatever…
“Fine. He’s doing fine.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
My heart sank as it dawned on me: Grace didn’t want to date me. She just wanted to hang out with me so she could pump me for more information about Sam.
I wished I could remove her interest about him. I wished I could step into her sights and replace the shadow of Sam.
Girls were always like this. They fell for Sam first—his overwhelming charisma and charm. Then they were always interested in me from afar, but they held on to him.They ended up chasing the shadow of his promises, following the dangling glow of his anglerfish light.
Yet, they never saw the teeth until it was too late.
Before I knew it, I was already looking for excuses to end the date.
“Sorry, I just want to make sure he’s okay after—”
“He’s fine,” I said testily.
Grace was trying my patience. This wasnotgoing according to plan.
“I… I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t apologize,” I snapped.
What waswrongwith me? I had a long fuse—this was unlike me.
“I just want to make sure he’s alright—”
“We can stop by the house so you can check on him,” I said curtly. “Is that what you want?”
“Yeah,” she said.
God, I was such an idiot.
“I know this is awkward,” she said, her voice full of shame. “But I feel responsible about what happened. And… and I want to make things right.”
My jaw ticked. “It’s fine. I get it.”
As I turned my Audi around and pointed it back toward the house, I couldn’t help but feel like we were going backward. I wanted to make progress with Grace, but at this point, I wasn’t even sure what that would look like.
If wedidkeep this date going, I knew she’d be thinking about Sam the whole time. She’d be comparing me to him, instead of what I wanted:
I wanted her toadmireme. I wanted her to acknowledge the differences between my friend and me; I wanted her to validate me with her eyes, with her lips, tell me I was better.
Because dammit, I needed to be better.
We got to the house, and I was successfully able to pretend nothing was wrong the entire way there.
Somehow.
But then again, I was very, very good at pretending nothing was wrong. It was one of my main skills.
Most of the effort that went into being a perfectionist was looking perfect.
