“Trust the psychotherapist to go deep.” Jan groaned in exaggeration.
“Well?”
“You know I’m picking a month of bliss.”
“Me too,” Liv decided.
Nate considered it. “Aye, a month of bliss is better than nothing.”
“Agreed.” Lily leaned into her dad with a smile and then they stared expectantly at me.
I shrugged. “I’d rather not know. Mediocre life never knowing.” I sensed Lily’s attention turn scrutinizing, so I changed the subject. “Would you rather spend eternity at a philosophy lecture or at a concert where they play the same song over and over again?”
“They like you,” Lily announced as we walked to the bus stop hours later. “My family likes you.”
Mid-October meant it was dark at this time and getting chillier by the day. January had left not long after dinner to record a podcast episode. She’d needled Lily for being more absent on the podcast than she’d expected her to be. “But then you’d have to date to have anything interesting to say, wouldn’t you?” she’d said pointedly to her big sister.
Lily glowered at her.
Now I let her words about her family penetrate. They felt good. After dinner and the fun Would You Rather game, Nate had shown me his photography studio at Lily’s urging. His passion projects were my favorite. He played around with filters and digital art to make his photographs almost painting-like. We had fun and I was relieved Nate seemed to like me. I told Lily as much. “I’m glad. I like them too.”
We stopped at the empty bus station and Lily shivered against the cold. I reached out and buttoned up the last button on her coat.
She smirked. “Thanks, Mum.”
“You looked cold. So … the podcast. You haven’t spoken much about it these last few weeks.”
Lily sighed. “I feel terrible because you know how much it means to me, but I haven’t had time.”
“To do the episodes or to date?” My heart hammered in my chest, and I didn’t want to think about why.
“Both. This year … the coursework is more than I even expected.”
“Yet you still find time for your friends?” For me.
“Of course. Dating is different, though.”
“In what way?”
“The mental energy it takes, for a start.”
I frowned, genuinely confused.
Lily laughed, but it was humorless. “You wouldn’t understand, Sebastian. You only have to look at a girl and speak to her in that posh voice and she’s telling everyone it was the best date of her life.”
Feeling rather smug she thought so, I couldn’t help my answering grin.
She smacked my arm. “Ego!”
I snickered. “You were the one who said it, not me.”
“My point is, when I go on a date, I overthink what I should wear. I overthink what I’m going to say. I then beat myself up mentally when I say something that was stupid or banal. By the time I’m done with a date, I’m exhausted. Drained. And then I spend the rest of the next few days worrying about what he thought of me. How I could have been a better date. Why didn’t he like me? Why I told him I liked peanut butter and pickle sandwiches when I was thirteen. It’s horrible.”
“I agree, peanut butter and pickle sandwiches sounds disgusting,” I teased.
Lily playfully shoved me, her lips curling ever so slightly. Yet there was sadness in her eyes.
My gut clenched at the idea of Lily putting herself through such mental gymnastics for something as simple as a date. “You didn’t seem all that bothered with that finance guy that night at Whistlebinkies.”
