Page 24 of Save the Date

“That sounds great, thank you,” Will replied. He waited until the employee was safely out of earshot to whisper, “Is that a child? Or an adult?”

“I have no idea! I’ve been trying to figure it out this whole time.”

“Same. Her face is very young, but her essence—”

“Is like a forty-year-old’s.”

“Exactly.”

For a moment Emma and Will just sat there smiling at each other. It was wild how easy it was to connect with the right person. No uncomfortable silences. No second-guessing if she should make a certain joke or not. A second date felt like an inevitability—in the best way.

It reminded Emma of how simple it was those first few months she was with Ryan. Until everything went wrong.

“You okay?” Will had noticed the shift in Emma’s mood. Her anxiety was back and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. It felt like the fantasy of their potential relationship was crashing down around her even though nothing bad had actually happened.

“Yeah. Yes.” She let out a fake cough to try to recalibrate. “We should probably get going.” She gestured to the employee who was clearly cleaning up for the night. “Let her get back to her math homework.”

“Or her three kids.”

“Maybe both,” Emma joked, feeling a bit more grounded in the moment instead of spiraling about the possibility of Will one day proposing and then breaking her heart.

“Not to be too forward, but would you want to get some ice cream?” Will asked as he held the door open for her.

“Will—” Emma turned to him and looked deep into his ocean-blue eyes “—if I ever tell you that I don’t want to get ice cream, take me to the hospital. Because something is very wrong.”

“I knew I liked you,” Will said before bopping her on the nose in a move that seemed to surprise both of them. “Sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”

Emma laughed. It felt nice to not be the only flustered one for once.

Eleven

What’s your last name?

EMMA HAD BEEN STARING AT WILL’S TEXT MESSAGE FORmultiple minutes while unintentionally holding her breath. She tried to think of a witty response that could evade the question without seeming suspicious. But so far all she’d come up with was “I don’t have one” and “You first,” which wouldn’t really solve the problem for more than a few seconds.

“Have you seen your mother?” Alan asked as he entered the industrially designed open concept living room and found Emma splayed out on the couch. Debbie and Alan had done a full renovation five years ago and Emma’s childhood home now felt like an edgyArchitectural Digestspread filled with black doors and exposed brick. It was unlike any other house on their cookie-cutter, suburban-feeling street, and Debbie took a lot of pride in that.

“She went for a walk,” Emma shared while hiding her phone under a heavy woven throw—as if that would make her problems go away.

“Without me? What the hell.” Alan flopped himself on thearmchair perpendicular to the couch. “I told her I wanted to go. The Millers got new landscaping and I hear it’s terrible.”

“I think she wanted to be alone, maybe.”

“What makes you say that?”

Emma wasn’t sure how to respond. From a family systems point of view, she should let her parents figure this stuff out on their own to avoid triangulation. But as a meddler since birth, she couldn’t resist telling her dad the truth.

“She might have said, ‘Don’t tell your father but I want to be alone,’ before racing out of the house.”

“Oh.” Alan sighed, dejected.

“I wouldn’t take it personally. She’s always needed a lot of alone time.”

“Why? I never need to be alone.”

Emma laughed, even though he wasn’t kidding. “You two are wired completely differently. You must know that by now.”

“I guess I’ll never understand her.”

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