I take a deep breath to calm my racing heart. This is it. After 15 years of emails, instant messages, phone calls, arguments, shut-outs, reintroductions, and professions of undying love, we are finally going to meet in person.
As friends. For coffee. In a public place. That's how you keep it safe, right?
My slim fingers are shaking as I perform search after search online, looking for just the right location. Somewhere partway between the city he moved to here in the US (finally!) and my house. Somewhere with a coffee shop and something to do afterwards -- a mall maybe? Somewhere equally public. Somewhere we can't get into any trouble.
Right up until a month ago, he'd always said we couldn't be "just friends." We have too much chemistry. It's what I need, though. Having him in my life at all is dangerous, intoxicating, and everyone who knows me well knows that. I couldn't tell anyone; he can't fit seamlessly into my life like anyone else I date. We have too much history, and he is bad for me. He's the type who can raise you to the stars in one breath and bury you six feet under in the next. My friends practically had to scrape me off the floor with a spatula after some of the verbal beatdowns he'd given me.
And yet, I can't stay away. His attention, though inconsistent, is completely addictive. His dark hazel eyes, his cheeky smile... and the way I always feel like I'm begging for his attention like a girl desperate to please. When I had it, it was ecstasy. When I didn't, I'd do anything to get it. Almost anything.
Finally settling on a location, what I hope will be a decent compromise, I email him the name and address of the place, a nice coffee shop across the street from a highly-rated shopping mall.
"Here?" I wait, my heart in my throat.
"Perfect."
Conflicted feelings rush through me at the use of that word. I'm overjoyed that he likes my choice, but that word has a tumultuous history with us. He'd used it to describe me in the past, and my anxiety spiked over being held to such an impossible standard, placed atop a pedestal on which I was too unbalanced to stand. Inevitably, I'd fallen off of it, and he'd watched me fall, insulting me the whole way down. He'd called me every name you could think of and wrenched my heart from my chest.
"I made a mistake," he'd said, "I believed you were different."
Afterward, we hadn't spoken for months, and I'd sworn that was the last time.
This is different, though. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one that my past 15-year-old self had only dared dream of. We're going to meet. As friends. He'd finally conceded to being friends, to keep me in his life. He'd implied the conversation was worth it, even without the chemistry. Of course it's still there, but we dart around it semi-gracefully. I don't say the L word to him; not anymore. We can do this, I tell myself. After all, we're all adults, right?
***
I've been counting down the days, and finally, it's here. It has only been three weeks of waiting, but it felt to me like a lifetime. I rise early, apply my makeup, straighten my long, black hair, dress in the outfit I chose weeks ago, and check myself in the mirror. I see a girl -- pretty, slim -- in a black sundress with white flowers, sheer stockings and combat boots. I smile nervously at myself as I insert my stud earrings, black roses. My sideswept bangs fall over my right eye as I tilt my head to reach my earlobe. I grab my shiny black headband on the way out the door. With my GPS and my tunes, I'm ready to go.
***
With both hands wrapped gingerly around my to-go cup, I tap my right index and middle fingers on the cardboard sleeve. If the past three weeks had gone by slowly, these last few minutes waiting in the coffee shop are molasses.
