So helpful! Didn’t think of that!
Tristan
Just be how you are with me and I know he’ll like you.
Three hours later, I’m covered in mud, my wrist is screaming in pain, and I’m thirty feet above the ground on a small platform. I’m leaning against the trunk of what I hope is a sufficiently sturdy oak, and my eyes are squeezed shut so I can’t see how dizzyingly far away the base of the tree is. I’m trapped on Ryan’s billionaire friend’s private preserve. I feel like I’m being hunted for sport.
Freaking rich people.
Fucking Ryan.
Fucking Ryan wholeft me herebecause he had to take a work call.
Really, I think he just wanted an excuse to weasel out of our date. The problems started forty-five minutes into the obstacle course when it became apparent that I was in better shape than him. At first, he puffed up and tried to outrun me. I slowed my pace for him, determined to make this date good and not leave him in the dust.
But then he wouldn’t stop talking about his fancy friends and name-dropping people I’d only ever seen in movies. I felt like I was seventeen again, watching my high school boyfriend, Max, and his friends play video games and pretending to enjoy myself when I could have been doing literally anything else.
I kept waiting for that warm, spilled-coffee feeling to jitter through me. I felt it with Tristan and I so badly wanted it to be there with Ryan, but it just wasn’t.
At mile three, I thought to myself,there has to be more to dating than this.
If Ryan were Tristan, I would have said something cocky to him, and he would have tugged on my braid and called mekiller.
God damn, he would have said, and the soft appreciation in his voice would have made me feel like flying.
Instead, Ryan wouldn’t stop talking about things I’m not interested in and he never once stopped to ask me about myself.How many times have I smiled politely when a man talked about something I didn’t care about?I wondered.How many times have I forced down words I wanted to say orarguments I wanted to make, all for the sake of being liked or being chosen?
And then I suggested we race, because I couldn’t take it anymore, and as soon as he agreed, adrenaline burst inside me like a dam and I sped off toward the first zip line.
Not exactly a great first date.
He texted me twenty minutes ago saying he had a work call, and I nearly threw my phone out of the tree.
“Fuck this,” I mutter, because cursing feels better than contemplating the rickety bridge in front of me. A bird chirps lazily in agreement. I gingerly test my wrist, biting my lip against the pain.
I hiss another curse as I try to rotate it. It’s not sprained, but it hurts like hell from zip line number three, when I slammed into the platform. Ryan wasn’t there for that, thank god. I need to wrap it, then I’ll make it across the stupid bridge. My eyes keep going to the wobbly structure, then skittering away. I pull my shirt over my head, wishing it were thinner and bigger so I could rip it into a long bandage. I just need compression and to immobilize the joint.
When I’m done wrapping the joint as firmly as I can and tying it with my shoelaces, I let my head tip back against the tree and contemplate the bridge. It’s mere ropes and slats, like something from an adventure movie. A strong gust of wind whips through the trees and the bridge sways.
I swallow away the sour taste in my mouth.
I’m not going back, and there’s no way off this stupid platform even if I did want to call Ryan for help, which I don’t. I fiddle with my phone, delaying the inevitable.
My last texts with Tristan are on the screen. I want so badly to text him, but something stops me. He’s on a date today. I can’t interrupt it. I can’t cling to him.
Tristan is out on a date and I’m alone, and I better getused to it, because this is the future. Just like at work, no one is coming and I need to rely on myself. I pull myself to standing, then startle when my phone buzzes.
Tristan
How’s the date? Did he make any moves?
I laugh weakly into the cool air.
Katie
If only.
I send him a picture of the platform and the bridge. My phone rings seconds later.
