It's Not A Love Story

I am sitting at the airport right now and all I can think of . . . is you. Before I leave, I need you to know how I feel. I LOVE YOU.

Ivy stared at her phone, at the text that was so personal she felt like she was eavesdropping on someone’s conversation at the table next to her. She was in a small cafe, the perfect place to people-watch, plus it had the best pesto-chicken panini. Sitting at a corner table for two with her headphones off one ear so she could hear when her order was called, the song “There She Goes” by The LA still humming quietly in the background, she reread the text for what must’ve been the hundredth time in the last three minutes. The first thing to pop into her head had been the voices of her two best friends.

“Just delete it. Say ‘wrong number’ and forget about it.” That was Em. Then there was Tia: “Text them back! I mean, come on, you have to see what they say.”

Her mom always joked that Em and Tia were kind of like the angel and devil on her shoulder. Ivy did want to text back. She did want to see what this mystery person had to say, but not for the same reason Tia would, which was just to mess with them and be entertained. No, for Ivy, the drive was curiosity, genuine intrigue. Her mind was already racing with the possibility that was held in those couple sentences. She imagined the author of the text, desperate to win back the heart of their lover. Sure, maybe it was a little dramatic, but it was too romantic. She was a total sucker for that kind of stuff, even if she’d never had a boyfriend herself. A sigh ran through her. “Sweet eighteen, never been kissed” did not have a ring to it. Then again, The Party was that night. . . Her hand moved instinctively to fiddle with the clasp of her bracelet. Thinking about it made it hard to breathe, like her chest was caught in limbo between a heavy feeling and the empty feeling of a sudden drop on a rollercoaster. She gave her head a little shake, bringing herself back into focus. The phone vibrated. Another text.

Please respond.

The devil and angel were back, joined by the host of others who seemed to take up residence in her mind as soon as she had to decide anything. The voices in her head were incessant. Ivy imagined a crowded room of people - only notions of people really, just shadows and silhouettes whose loud voices echoed - shouting and arguing. She felt trapped there sometimes. It was like she had to fight to get back to the cafe, pushing through crowds with hands clamped over her ears. She tried to focus on the table center piece, hydrangeas with blue-purple petals, on the weak rays of sunlight coming through the window, on the sound of the music coming through her headphones.

Hello. Sorry, I think you have the wrong number. My name is Ivy.

The response was immediate.

Oh.

Hi, Ivy. My name is Theo.

Ivy was caught off guard. She hadn’t expected him to respond. She definitely hadn’t expected an introduction.

Theo: Sorry you got to hear how pathetic I am.

Ivy: Don't be. Who is she? The girl you were trying to text.

Theo: Her name is Jane. I’m leaving for the summer and I probably will never see her again. I had to tell her. I should’ve done it in person, but, like I said, I’m pathetic. I asked a friend for her number and I spent forever trying to decipher their handwriting. Literally hieroglyphics.

To be honest, I’m kind of glad it wasn’t her. I mean, the whole declaration of love was a little dramatic. One of those things that sounds good in some romcom movies, but that would be really embarrassing and dumb in real life, right?

Ivy: Yeah, kind of.

Theo: So I guess I should thank fate for stepping in and giving me you instead?

Ivy: Fate, or just bad handwriting. But yes, I think it’s safe to say that you dodged a bullet.

Ivy smiled to herself. Theo was right. It was like fate. The hopeless romantic in her believed that.

Ivy: You’re at the airport?

Theo: Yeah. I hate airports. Where are you?

Ivy: One of my favorite places ever. There’s the cutest cafe down the street from where I live that I would go to, like, everyday if I could.

That was true. She loved this cafe, but if she were with Em and Tia, they would be at the mall for soft pretzels and smoothies.

Theo: I like where you are better. What if we just pretend I’m there instead?

Ivy: I love it.

Theo: Let’s start over. I walked in, our eyes met, and we knew instantly that the chance meeting was fate.

~~~

“Hi, I’m Ivy.”

“I’m Theo.”

There he was, sitting across from her at her little table. Ivy pulled her headphones off.

“What’s it like?” Ivy rested her head in her hands.

“What?”

“Being in love. What’s it like?”

“It sucks,” Theo said. “It’s the absolute worst. I wouldn’t recommend it. In my experience, you spend a lot of time feeling dumb and working up the courage to do anything and then one day you find yourself spilling your guts to a stranger.”

Ivy smiled. “That doesn’t sound too bad. That’s kind of just my average day. Not the stranger part, but the feeling dumb and scared, absolutely.”

“Well, you’re not dumb. But what are you scared about?”

She almost told him everything. At the thought of The Party, the voices in her head came back full force and she almost let them out. The voices, the feelings, felt like a can of root beer all shaken up; Theo’s question had started to open the can, the slightest break of the seal and foam and liquid were bubbling up to relieve the mounting pressure. It was a panicky kind of sensation, Ivy’s reaction to it. Everything had just about exploded. What are you scared about? He was so blunt. She guessed she had been the same way, asking way-too-personal questions. She only felt uncomfortable now because she was the one in the hot seat. He didn’t seem to have any problem telling someone he just met all about himself. And he said everything shamelessly.

“Order for Ivy!” It startled her, this disembodied voice from some other place and time. That’s what it felt like. She set her phone down. Theo disappeared. It was an empty, jarring feeling. He was just gone. It was all an illusion, after all, even if it felt like the opposite, like she was entering a foreign place in leaving him. The small amount of sunshine that had forced its way through the clouds was gone and outside the window was overcast. There was a woman sitting at a nearby table who hadn’t been there before, sitting with her laptop in front of her. Ivy went and got her sandwich. She fidgeted with her bracelet on her way up to the counter. Her brain felt fuzzy, like TV static was playing in her mind, like she was just waking up from a nap. When she sat back down at the table, part of her wondered if she should even respond. That was the thing about talking with Theo, she could just stop. She could delete his number. She would never see him again.

It started to rain outside. Ivy momentarily allowed herself to be distracted by the raindrops that were sliding down the window. It was sort of soothing. The drops were like snails, leaving tracks behind as they moved. “It’s raining,” she said, turning back to Theo. It was strange to her how quickly he reappeared.

“Cool,” he replied. “But you didn’t really answer my question.”

Of course she hadn’t. She didn’t know how to answer. “If you must know,” she hesitated. “I’m scared of The Party.”

“The Party? Now I’m intrigued.”

Yes, The Party. The thing she’d been dreading all week.

“Just this end-of-year thing.” The words felt stiff and full of forced causality. And what for? Why keep pretending that it wasn’t her worst nightmare? This wasn’t Em or Tia or her mom. “I’m actually terrified. There will be lots of noise and chaos and lots of people there who don’t know that I know them, because I’ve never actually talked to them. The two ways I can see it going are that I (1) stand awkwardly out of the way, plaster on a fake smile, and just try to keep that up all night, or (2) try to embrace the “it’s senior year, you’ll never see these people again” mentality and put myself out there only to humiliate myself and even though I might not ever see those people again, think about that moment and replay it over and over. Because I think the truth is that my worst fear is that if people ever got to know me, they would hate me.”

The words tumbled out of her like marbles spilling out of a bag, each individual sphere rolling out and then rolling away. It was a sensation of sudden lightness like dumping out a pitcher of water, feeling the heaviness disappear at the moment it did, feeling the force and weight of that water in an almost surreal way, in the subtle changes of angle of the pitcher, the involuntary lifting, rising, in response to relief. And all at once a different kind of heaviness entered, more like the rain that was falling in sheets now outside the window; it was refreshing, like she could see and hear and feel more clearly, but it was somewhat melancholy nonetheless.

“Impossible.”

“What?”

“It would be impossible for someone to hate you.”

“Nothing’s impossible.”

“You’ve just turned a lovely sentiment on its head and I don’t appreciate it.”

“It can’t only apply in certain scenarios. I’m just being indiscriminate in my use of the phrase.”

“Such wit. You sound like a Jane Austen heroine.”

“As if you’ve read Jane Austen.” She said it, but didn’t really mean it. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he had.

“I’d have you know that I’ve read Pride and Prejudice and seen the movie Emma, so I’m basically a Jane Austen aficionado. But this is all besides the point. Your fear is stupid.”

“Thanks for that sympathetic response.”

“Hey, it’s just the truth.”

“But you don’t really know me. You only know the ‘me’ that has time to think of responses. You’ve never even seen me.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Okay, stalker. So you’ve been lying and actually been here watching me all along?”

“No. But you can see me, can’t you?”

It was true. Since they agreed to pretend he was at the cafe, she could see him sitting across from her as vividly as if he really was. She hadn’t assumed that he would think that same way, imagine her, pretend they were having this conversation in person.

“Well, then your fear is stupid, too.”

“What?”

“Your fear of Jane. Isn’t it basically the same? You haven’t talked to her because you’re scared of what she’ll think of you. I’m scared to go to a party because I’m scared of what the people there will think of me.”

“Okay, so it's decided. We’re both stupid, pathetic, cowards and we should hide away in this cafe for the rest of our lives and only talk to each other.”

She let out an involuntary sigh of relief at the idea of it.

“That sounds perfect. But you have a plane to catch.”

“And you have a party to go to.”

The Party. Ivy still wasn’t jumping up and down about that. The conversation veered away from greatest fears and parties and love. They talked about movies and books and music. Theo told her more about Jane and about his friends and their weekly game night that usually dissolved into seeing who could catch more grapes in their mouth and debates about nothing. Ivy talked about Em and Tia and the time they belted show tunes with the windows rolled down as they drove around on New Year's Eve. Then there was a pause in the conversation and Theo said, “I have to board.”

“Okay. I hope you can get a hold of Jane for real. Bye, Theo.”

“Me too. Good luck tonight, Ivy.”

Just like that, Theo disappeared. Ivy was staring at her phone screen. She set it down. She ate her lunch. She stared out the window at the pouring rain. She played with her bracelet. She was dreading stepping out into the storm. But she couldn't stay in the cafe forever.