His words strike a chord somewhere inside me, and I think about dipping under the water as a means for avoidance. I opt to dance around the issue instead. “True, but you’re only capable of doing that because you’re part robot. If you were a human, like the rest of us, you’d be a glutton for painful cyber nostalgia like the rest of us with a bevy of lingering loves to remember for the rest of your days.”
“I doubt it,” he says, fully convinced of his own willpower.
“We’ll have to test that theory,” I tell him. “Before I leave Italy, I’ll follow you, then you follow me, and in a few months, when you’ve almost completely forgotten about me, we’ll see if you slide into my DMsorif you delete my number and send my memory out into the ether with the rest of your past relationships.”
Matt doesn’t answer right away. A few moments later he says, “I can tell you already that you’re wrong.”
“About which part?” I ask, swimming forward a little.
“About me forgetting you in a few months. I don’t see that happening. I’m not happy about it and it’s your fault.”
I give him a confused look in response. “Did you just shade compliment me à la Mr. Darcy?”
“Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.”
I shake my head, as I so often do in his presence. “I don’t understand you sometimes. Your bait and switch romantic tendencies are very confusing.”
Matt thinks for a second. He starts to talk and then stops himself before finally replying, “I’m not a particularly smooth person. I’ve only ever had one serious girlfriend and we got together in high school.”
I’m surprised by his admission, though I guess maybe I shouldn’t be.
“Do you think we would have liked each other back then?” I decide to ask.
Matt doesn’t take long to consider it. “I mean, I can’t speak for you, but I’m sure I would have liked you. Come to think of it, you probably would have hated me.”
“How do you figure that?”
Matt moves his hands through the water, creating a slow-moving current, and I look down as it washes up against my chest.
“I didn’t have a whole lot going on depth-wise,” he says. “I played soccer and got subpar grades. I was on the quieter side, but my friends were loud, and all together we were obnoxious. I can just picture you sitting with your artsy group, sneering at me and thinking we were the worst.”
“Right,” I scoff, “because there’s no way I’d be into the good-looking soccer player that had an obvious crush on me.”
Matt grins. “I’m sure it would have been obvious. Talk about stalking people on social media—I would have been all over your Facebook. The pokes would have been endless.”
“Oh, my god,” I laugh, immediately entering into a Facebook time warp, having long since deleted the app. “I forgot about the thrill of pokes.”
“I’d like to say I’ve matured a lot since then, but I’m sure I haven’t. Women still make me nervous. You in particular.”
I take a breath at his words. He makes me nervous, too. But before now, I was always too busy being mad at him to notice.
“Did I always make you nervous?” I ask. He nods and I continue, “I assumed you just thought I was annoying. You said as much.”
“I did,” he says. “It was annoying how much you affected me.”
I mentally sift through our interactions at that, wondering if he ever appeared to feel anything for me other than obvious dislike. I find nothing. “You never acted that way,” I tell him.
“I discovered early that scowling was an easy mask to hide behind. I tried it on, and it fit.”
Matt seems resigned at his own declaration, and it makes me feel for him—for this person who thought that taking cover behind a stoic face was his safest bet in life. I’m desperate to ask him more about it, but I can tell from his slowly tensing posture that he’s not ready. Not yet. Instead, I try to lighten things up as we continue to drift as two parallel points in the water.
“I can’t believe we haven’t gotten kicked out of here yet,” I muse. “I thought for sure we’d only get to swim for a couple minutes, tops.”
Matt smiles, most likely relieved by the change of topic. “Why do you always think that the worst is going to happen?” he asks. “It makes sense for me, because I’m a cynic. But you seem like the antithesis of all things negative.”
I shrug and dip down lower, letting the waterline run along my neck. “I suppose it came with age and experience. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”
“It must be tiring.”
