I’m expecting him to feign confusion or something, but he just puts down his menu and sighs. “I’m sorry, Addie,” he says. “This is the nicest restaurant I could think of, and it didn’t even occur to me that…I mean, I feel like an idiot.”
Zach leans across the table then and asks, his voice earnest, “Do you want to…we can leave if you want.”
I think about it for a few seconds, my face and neck still warm, the glare of the lights still too much. But then I focus on Zach’s eyes, gray and deep and apologetic. Even though I’m annoyed at him, they send a jolt through my body.
If I storm out, make him take me back home, I’d be ruining something I’ve wanted since practically the moment I met him. Not just getting todateZach, to spend time with him under the full disclosure that we like each other, but also that vibrant, inextinguishable feeling coursing through my veins whenever we’re together.
It’s like he pries my eyes open with his smile, with his touch, with his presence.
“And let perfectly good garlic bread go to waste?” I say, still a little bit angry, but Zach smiles slowly, relieved.
“I’m an idiot,” he says.
“I’m not going to argue with you,” I say, and he laughs. I order for both of us—the chef’s special—which neither of us has ever had before: corzetti stampati al limone. The pasta is round and flat, shaped like coins, with lemon sauce and cheese sprinkled over it. It is hot and cheesy and lemon-tangy, the best thing I’ve tasted in years.
“Hmmm.”
“Mmmm.”
We take turns making increasingly questionable-sounding murmurs of appreciation over the food, and as I do, I’m conscious of the fact that I rarely do this—let go, enjoy myself, wrap myself in a happy moment, even if it means being silly.
I make a concerted effort to indulge myself, to dip myself in the buzzing, happy, warm Zachness of this moment.
“Good.”
“So good.”
“You should be a professional meal orderer.”
“Only if I got to eat everything I ordered.”
“Of course,” Zach says.
“I’d try something new every single day,” I say.
“I like that about you.”
“You like what?” I glance up at Zach, but tearing my gaze away from my food for too long seems like blasphemy, so I quickly go back to it.
“That you try things. That you haven’t made up your mind about every single thing,” he says. “When I offered you a horrody, you went for it, which not everyone would. Some people would leave with only what they came for. And then you watched it—and went for all the rest.”
I chew more slowly now. “I was kind of swayed….I mean, I don’t promise I’d have done the same thing if you were really unattractive.” This isn’t untrue, but I am suddenly feeling emotional about what Zach has just said.
I’ve never thought of myself as open. I think of myself as somehow incomplete, desperate to find things that will fill me, make me feel like I’m reallyliving.
I blink rapidly because, oh my God, I can’t cry in here. On my first date with Zach. Over something so stupid.
He doesn’t notice what’s happening, and he’s grinning at what I last said. “And then when I asked you to be in my movie, you were game. And you were up for everything. Even the mattress-hoisting thing with Raj. Sorry about that, by the way.”
And as if the only way to prevent the crying is to channel all that emotion into the exact opposite feeling, I start giggling. It starts in my chest, little ripples of laughter, rising,frothingupward. Unfortunately, I’m still chewing, and a small piece of food gets caught in my windpipe, so now I’m choking a little and laughing a lot. Which sets Zach off. Which makes me laugh harder.
I reach for my glass of water and gulp it down, but it seems to go down the wrong way, so now I’mactuallycoughing and my face is hotter than ever—both from the coughing and the awareness that we’re making a scene—and it’s completely embarrassing. Zach is laughing so hard he’s wheezing, but then he abruptly stops and his eyes go wide and he says, “Wait, you’re actually okay, right? You’re not actually choking?”
But with all the coughing and laughing, all I can do is nod. The couple at the table next to ours looks over at us and I lose all composure again and I think the last time I was this silly was in, maybe, fifth grade, but the laughter is like the contents of a bottle whose cork has sprung off. I can’t stop it. I can’t push it back in.
Zach, no longer laughing, says, “It’s not like you’re about to die on me, right?”
I shake my head, sobering up the slightest bit, the coughing receding a little, but I still can’t trust myself to speak.
