Furry Hands

8

On a calm fall night, Ryan and Miriam were parked in his Honda. They were at Elfman's Forest Preserve. There was a silence hanging in the air but it wasn't awkward but refreshing instead.

"Honey, I think I know where I want to go to college," Ryan said.

"Are you okay?"

"What?" asked a puzzled Ryan.

"We don't call each other 'honey.' What are we, fifty?" said Miriam. She looked seriously pissed.

"Umm, ah, I thought it would be cute. You don't like it? Also, Miriam, really missing the point here."

Miriam chuckled. "You poor little baby. I'm just messing with you. Go ahead and call me 'honey' or 'baby,' if you want, but just ask first."

"Noted. Okay. I'm gonna go to UC Irvine. Won't that be awesome?"

Silence. The bad kind. They could practically smell it.

"UC Irvine. But that's in California," said Miriam.

"California is awesome. It's so warm. They have every kind of food. They have In N' Out. That's where I wanna be," declared Ryan. He was playing dumb but couldn't tell if Miriam could see that yet.

She summoned strength from within and began, "But I told you that I want to go to either NYU or Columbia. So how's that going to work - you being on the West Coast and me being on the East Coast?"

He closed his eyes. One more trick up his sleeve. He felt like a total asshole. "Crap, you're right. I'll have to get in somewhere in New York. Maybe I'll visit California someday."

"No, no, no, no," she just kept saying it.

He opened his arms for her. "Hey, shh, we're smart. We can figure this out."

She wrapped around him and dropped her voice to a whisper. "I can't let you follow me if you wanna be somewhere else. That's not fair."

Holy shit. It had worked. She was pushing him to go to California now.