“Andthatis?” He scoffs.
I give a pathetic grimace and shake my head. “No.”
“Has that stuff happened to you a lot growing up here?” he asks.
“You mean do drunk men often try to fight me?” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t—”
“No, no. I just… I guess I’ve never had anyone to really discuss it with.” I pause to take a sip of my milkshake. “It’s not that I’ve encountered a ton of very direct abuse or anything like that, I think mostly because people here have known me my whole life, but… you know, there are still stupid things that I hear. People making racist jokes about me doing their nails, or pulling their eyes back asking how I can even see. Moments that remind me I’m different from everyone else here and that people around me see me differently. Even Savannah and Rory. My whole life, they’ve never really seen me as Asian, because to them… being Asian is a bad thing. You know? But it’s not. It’s just… a thing. I don’t really think it has to be good or bad. It justis.”
Ryan nods. “I get that. I felt that a little bit growing up in Pittsburgh, but then when I came here, it was like…muchmore apparent. Also, since I didn’t know anyone, I felt like there were really no moments when Ididn’tfeel like that… until I met you.”
“Really?” I ask, taking a bite of my burger.
“Yeah, I mean, even before we started hanging out, like when you would just come into the Dinor with your friends, there was this awareness that someone else in that space waslike me. It made me feel less… other, I guess.” He offers me a sad sort of smile and a shrug.
“I kinda had the same feeling. I mean, I don’t remember, you know… most of it, but when we made plans to go to the fair that day… it was almost comforting? Is that the right word?” I ask.
He nods hard in agreement. “That’s it.”
“Like I knew I could take you to that knife game at the fair and you’d find it just as ridiculous as I did. There was something really nice about that,” I say.
“I think any sane person would agree with us.” He laughs.
We slurp down our drinks and eat our burgers, and the whole time I can’t stop thinking about how even after the horrible start tonight, things mightactuallybe finally falling into place between the two of us. We’re really talking about some real stuff, and… things seem to be clicking so easily. Maybe I did just need to try a little harder with him.
When we finish our meals, he offers to drive me home, and I don’t hesitate to accept.
On the way to his car, a text buzzes into my phone from Rory.
Hey, did you really leave?
Yeah…,I reply. It’s been over an hour, is she just noticing now?
Seriously? Stevie, come on. That guy was drunk. I mean, it was a joke.
It seemed like you and Savannah found it real funny.
I silence my phone and slip it back into my pocket as I climb into the car. I’m not going to let them mess this night up again.
We pull out and I sit in the passenger seat tracing random shapes into the top of my white Styrofoam container with my nail as we shuffle through one of Ryan’s Spotify playlists. On the other side of the glass, the endless fields roll by, thick with eight-foot-tall cornstalks and dark-green soybeans waiting to turn brown before harvest. As we make our way back to my house, each farm blurs into the next, somehow all looking like the Martins’ to me now.
I dig my nails deeper into the Styrofoam as I think about the other day there. The tingling lightness in my stomach when I finally wrapped myself around Nora. The way she made me feel safe even though we were riding on an absolute death trap. The way my face felt when she moved the strand of hair, the feeling lingering long after she pulled her hand away.
I try to redirect the crossed signals where they’re supposed to go. I imagine what it would feel like for Ryan to be standing on the other side of the fence line from me, his face inches from mine, or to have my arms wrapped around his waist as we rode through a field, his honey-brown eyes peeking over his shoulder at me. After tonight it should be easy. But no matter what I try, it just doesn’t feel the same, not like I think it should.
“When do you have to work again?” Ryan asks from beside me, pulling me out of my thoughts, and my eyes refocus on the container in my lap.
OnN-O-R-Aetched into the top.
“Umm…” My eyes go wide as I casually cover the whole thing with my hand. “Wednesday, er, no, Thursday, actually.”
“Me too,” he says, bringing his left hand to the top of the steering wheel and resting his right arm on the center consolebetween us. I watch his fingers tap against the gearshift with the rhythm of the electric guitar playing through the speakers. I like him. I do. I mean, we’ve never had trouble finding things to talk about. Maybe we have to be touching like I was with Nora. If I could just reach out and take his hand, I’d probably feel it then. My eyes trace the veins in the back of his hand, under his simple black watch, over his forearm, and up to his face.
I slowly pick my hand up and slide it under his. He looks over at me and smiles, closing his hand around mine.
I wait to feel something, anything, but the only thing that comes is a building tension in my shoulders that I can’t seem to relax. My chest tightens but my stomach sinks. I want to let go, take my hand back into my lap and pretend I never did this, but the problem is I have no freaking clue how. Ireallydon’t want to hurt his feelings, but the longer we sit like this, the more I think about what might happen next and the harder it is for me to breathe.
