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 the list 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 has people is 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."
I take a breath and wonder if he is being genuine. The list is still right there in my head. The list of sentences I was going to say, and I realize not one of them is a question. Every one of them is a firm goodbye, and for some stupid reason I don’t want to say any of them just yet.
"Fine," I say, exasperated more at myself than at him. "What do you do for work."
He doesn't blink.
"I run my family's business," he says. "It’s international and old. Parts of it are legitimate. Parts of it aren’t. You won’t find a title or job description on paper that explains what I do. If you ask me for specifics, I’ll tell you that I don't give specifics to people I haven’t yet decided to trust. That’s not meant as an insult.
It’s just the safest answer I can give you. "
I stare at him.
"Are you telling me you're a criminal?"
"I’m telling you I’m a man with obligations. Some of those obligations are in the grayer areas of society. I won’t lie to you about it even if I can’t expand on it right now."
I blink at him, every word in my brain fizzling out to static and dying on my tongue.
"I told you I’d tell you the truth," he says. “What surprises you about it?”
I put my coffee down and consider his question. Why am I so shocked?
He hasn't moved. His hands are still folded in front of him on the table, the bandage on his bicep invisible under the black sweater. He is looking at me as if nothing else in this diner is happening.
The grilled cheese arrives, but I don't touch it.
"Do you know who Jason is?" I ask, carefully even though there’s no point in being careful with this man.
His jaw tightens.
"Your ex. Tell me about him," he says.
“What is there to tell?” I snap. “You obviously already know everything about me.”
I snatch up half of my grilled cheese and take a big bite.
He watches me eat it without touching his club sandwich. His eyes don’t leave my lips and I’m irritated to find myself blushing.
I take a large gulp of coffee to clear my mouth before asking, "Why me?"
He looks at me.
"You've seen me one time," I add. "For maybe six minutes, in a car accident, when you had a head injury, and I did for you what I did for everyone else in that pile-up. I was a woman with a first aid kit. So why am I sitting here?"
He looks down at his hands on the table, searching for the words.
"My father put me in rooms with frightened people when I was twelve," he says. "He wanted me to learn what fear looks like on a face so I would know what to do with it. I have spent my entire life looking at faces, Sadie.
I have never, not once, in thirty-seven years, seen a face do what yours did when I put my hand on your throat.
You looked at me like I was just another person.
I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that moment.
I came to the clinic today because I needed to know whether it was real or whether I was inventing something that I never imagined could be real. "
My mouth is dry.
"And it turns out,” he adds, “that you are real."
I narrow my eyes. I know there’s more to this than he is sharing right now. Annoyingly, he has me intrigued.