“You drink espressos after dinner. Your fault.”
The cheese on my pizza burns the roof of my mouth. But it’s worth it—salty and hot, delicious. “You know I’ve been worried about finding Daniel for a long time.”
“Of course. But you knew the ending ahead of time. What a gift.” Marcella seems to catch herself. “Not a gift, sorry. I know it’s been stressful. Like, you can’t even bone a hot guy before your fated shows up ruining the whole thing.”
“Thatis real,” I say holding up my water. “Rest in peace, careless banging.”
“God, I might cry,” she says.
“But in all seriousness,” I say. “I think now the stress has moved fromwhere is hetoam I really doing the right thing here?”
“Versus what? Dating Ellis?” The skepticism is high; I see Mar struggle not to sound judgmental.
“Not Ellis, necessarily, although yeah. More like…I don’t know. Now that he’s here I guess I might be having second thoughts?”
She nods. “I hear you. That’s normal. It’s like, once Logan and I got engaged, suddenly I was like,Wait—for real? The choice feels like it’s taken away from you.”
“Yes, that!”
Her red lips scrunch to the side, thinking for a beat before saying, “The thing is, thatisthe choice. You made the ultimate choice. Nothing is taken away; the world has actually opened up.”
I’m silent for a second. “Wow, bitch, that got deep.”
She laughs and throws a piece of bread at me. “Shut up.”
When I get back to the office after lunch, I see a message waiting for me on my desk:
Daniel Nam called.
The ball is now firmly in my court. I don’t bother figuring out how long to wait until I text him. I type it out before I can think:
Hi, it’s Cassia.
Immediately:
Ooh, a text message in response to a phone call. You ARE younger than me.
I smile.
I work in an office with my family. It’s like calling a boy on your family landline in the kitchen.
A boy, huh?
There’s a goofy smile on my face as I type back:
I could pretend you’re my best friend calling about math homework
Wow, intense flashback to algebra right now.
I’m sorry. Unless you liked math?
I hated it but joke’s on me—architecture requires maths.
Sad.
There’s a brief pause. He types back:
I called because I wanted to ask you out.
