Sadie
I change my outfit four times.
That's what makes me angry. I stand in front of the cheap plastic drawers I've been using instead of a dresser, and I pull out a shirt, put it on, take it off, pull out another one, toss it aside. The whole time I am narrating to myself very clearly that this is not a date, this is a conversation. This is me exercising my right to set a boundary with a man who has crossed every boundary I have. And a woman who is setting a boundary does not need to change her shirt four times.
I settle on the cream sweater. It's soft and it fits me and it doesn’t look like I tried, which is a lie because I tried, and I am furious at myself for it.
I brush out my hair and swipe on mascara. Then I scrub the mascara off because putting mascara on for a man who is not a date feels like I’m already losing a game I don’t know how to play.
I check my kit. Glucose tabs in my coat pocket, a granola bar in my purse, my meter, a backup pen. My sugar is one-ten, which is fine…better than fine, and I shove some candy in my bag anyway because I'd rather be ridiculously over-cautious than shaky.
I leave at seven forty-five.
It's a twelve-minute walk to the diner, and I use every minute of it to tell myself what I’m going to say. I have a list. I made thelist in the supply closet this afternoon while I was waiting for my pulse to come down, and I’ve been adding to it and crossing off from it ever since.I am not a woman you can watch. I am not a woman you can follow. I am not a project. I have a life I am building and I deserve peace.I say the sentences in my head in time with my steps.Thank you for dinner. I am leaving now. Please do not contact me again.
The diner is on the corner; the windows fogged from the warmth inside. I picked it on purpose. I’ve walked past it enough times to know it’s small and loud and full of families and nobody who haspeopleis going to feel comfortable in a booth made of cracked red vinyl under a fluorescent light.
I push the door open.
He's already there. Seated in a back booth, facing the door, and he stands up when I walk in. I hate that my stomach does a small flip at the gesture because I spent the entire walk telling myself I wasn’t going to let my stomach do any flips just because of a man. Even if he is terrifyingly large and darkly handsome.
He's in a black sweater and dark jeans. I don't know what I expected, maybe the charcoal suit from this morning, but he isn't wearing it, and the absence of it changes something about him that I’m not going to examine right now.
"Sadie." His voice is a hum of satisfaction, and only makes me even more angry.
"Nick," I bite out.
I slide into the booth across from him and put my purse on the seat beside me, resting my coat on top of it. I fold my hands on the table in front of me the way I fold my hands in front of patients when I am about to tell them something they don't want to hear.
He sits down.
He folds his own hands on the table, almost a mirror, and I would bet every one of the dollars in my checking account that he did it on purpose. That he noticed what I did and matched me for some psychological benefit or other.
A waitress appears. I order coffee and a grilled cheese because I’m hungry and I’m not prepared to pretend I’m not hungry to impress him. He orders coffee and a club sandwich, tipping the waitress twenty dollars before she has even brought us anything.
"Thank you for coming," he says.
"I'm here because you said you would leave me alone if I asked you to. I’m going to hold you to that."
The coffee comes. I wrap my hands around the mug and let it warm my fingers.
"You look nice," he says.
I look at him with every ounce of weariness I can summon. "Don't."
"What?" he asks.
"Don't do that." My voice is low but steady, the working voice, the one I use when a patient is being difficult. "I didn't come here for compliments. I came here because I told you I would and because I keep my word even when the person across from me hasn't earned it."
Something in his face moves.
The shape that could become a smile if he let it, but he doesn't, and I think for a horrible second that he’s enjoying this. He likes that I am fighting him the way another man might like a woman in a pretty dress.
"Ask me anything," he says.
"What?" I demand, thrown slightly by his candor.
"I said I would give you one hour. Ask me anything you want to ask me, and I will answer you. Honestly."
