Liz laughs a little at herself. A self-deprecating laugh. As cute as she looks, I hate the sound of it. I want her to laugh for the right reasons.
“Your profile said you were from the South?” I ask without looking over at her.
“I grew up in Florida,” she says. “But not the nice part. I got out of there as fast as I could.”
“You came all the way to Washington by yourself?”
She nods. “Yeah. Left home four years ago. Been here just over three, but the weather still affects me a lot more than I expected. Plus, it’s not exactly been easy making friends when I don’t have a lot of money to go out on the weekends.” She pauses and looks over at me. “I’m not exactly selling myself very well, am I?”
I shake my head, and without thinking, reply, “I don’t like being with people.” She seems to sink deeper into the seat at this revelation. “Most people, that is.”
She nods, but doesn’t say anything. Which means I don't really have a choice but to explain myself more.
“I just feel like so many people are fake. Like they’re too concerned about what other fake people think about them. Everyone wants to be rich and popular, or drunk and stoned, or sexy and wanted. I feel like I’m trapped in this cage society has built around me. All I want is to go somewhere else. I wish I had your balls.”
“What do you mean?”
“You moved across the country by yourself. That takes a helluva lot of guts. Meanwhile I’m still living in my childhood home.”
She’s looking at the dashboard, qui
et. The conversation seems to die here, but then out of the silence comes her tiny voice. “Maybe I used to be brave, but I don’t feel like it anymore.”
“Says the girl who left everything behind to start a new life in the west, just like the pioneers. Now you’re at the start of a new adventure that you didn’t plan for. Who knows where the road might take us.” I place a hand on her knee. It’s meant to be a friendly gesture, but she bites her lips at my touch. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re kicking ass.”
She opens her mouth to say something but falls short before any sounds come out. I’m almost questioning whether it wasn’t just a half-realized yawn when she finally looks over at me and says in one rushed breath, “Why did you swipe right on me?”
I keep my eyes firmly on the road because I’m afraid to meet her eyes.
“I thought you looked cute,” I end up saying. I don’t know why I chose the word ‘cute’, but it’s out there now, working through the machinations of Liz’s brain. As much as it’s a compliment, it’s not enough. A silence falls between us, so thick that I forget how long we’ve been driving. Minutes feel like hours until I finally blurt out, “I needed to meet you.”
“What?” Liz comes back with.
“The reason I swiped right is because I needed to meet you.”
“Because I’m cute?”
“That too, but it was bigger than that. More…I’m not sure how to word it. It was more monumental than that. I wasn’t even looking for someone to date. I’d given up on it.” It’s time to show my cards. All of them, for better or worse. “To be honest, I didn’t even download that app. I left my phone at the gym and these meatheads I see every day thought it would be hilarious. They’re always saying I need to get….”
I don’t finish the sentence because it’s crude. Thankfully, Liz is picking up on something else entirely.
“I didn’t download the app either. It was the girl I work with. She’s always saying I need a guy. She’s the one who swiped right on you for me. I never would have downloaded an app like that for myself. In fact, I was thinking about deleting it when you sent me a message.”
I’m shaking my head, but I don’t think it’s for the reason Liz thinks.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. But you have to admit this is a little wild,” I say motioning between us. “I don’t want to go too far, but this is the sort of thing I’ve been looking for in my life. Everything for me is so rigid. Like my life is pre-built and I’m supposed to mold myself to fit into the shape my father has ready for me. But this thing right now. It’s something else.”
“Like what?”
I take my eyes off the road for two seconds so I can stare into her eyes. God, she’s gorgeous. I realize it more than ever now as this single word waits on the tip of my tongue. Then it leaps:
“Fate.”
And in this moment, it doesn’t matter that we’ve just met. She doesn’t know that the yacht we’re driving to was a present from my father on my 18th birthday. Just like it doesn’t matter that I don’t know how many siblings she has, if any. Or whether or not she’s religious or a vegetarian or something else. We’re not friends and few would barely consider us acquaintances at this point. In every sense of the word, we’re strangers. Strangers who met by accident. Or possibly fate.
Even though we’ve just met and know next to nothing about each other, I can’t stop myself from leaning over the console and crushing my lips against hers.