Two Hours I Didn't Plan For

The thing about saying yes in a parking lot is that it locks you in before you've had time to decide if you actually want to go. Nadia asked and I said yes and then we were both standing there nodding like we'd just agreed to something important, which maybe we had. I went home and put it in my calendar the way you do when you're not sure if something will happen but you want proof you tried.

We met at this place near campus, I'd driven past it probably forty times and never gone in. Small, a little cramped in the best way, the kind of coffee shop that's figured out the right playlist without making it a whole personality. Nadia was already there when I arrived, which I clocked because I was two minutes early and she was still earlier, which told me something. We ordered. We sat down. And then we just talked, which sounds obvious but isn't always, especially when the classroom version of someone is the only version you have to compare against. The classroom version of Nadia is composed and a little dry in a way I liked. The coffee shop version is the same but louder. I mean that as a compliment. She talks with her hands.

the part where it actually clicks

I stayed longer than I expected. We got to the point in the conversation where you've covered the obvious stuff and you could either wrap it up politely or just keep going, and we kept going. At some point she said something about the creative writing class and I said something back and we were suddenly in a different conversation than the one we started with, the kind that feels like it's picking up in the middle of something rather than beginning. I don't know what I expected. Pleasantly awkward was on the table as an outcome and it wasn't that. It was easier.

after, when it was quiet again

I drove home with the windows down because it's been that kind of June, the air still warm at six in the afternoon, Gerald on the windowsill probably putting out another leaf just to make a point. I didn't write anything down when I got back. I just sat for a while. Sometimes that's what counts as a good day.