Just As Planned

Mira: Date?

Mira was nervous. She was going on a date with Anna!

Or at least she thought she was going on a date with Anna.

She was pretty sure she was going on a date with Anna.

She was almost sure she was going on a date with Anna.

She had no idea if she was going on a date with Anna.

Anna had seemed to imply that it was a date, but she hadn't been clear that it was a date. 

Mira didn't want to get her hopes up about a girl again only to discover that all she wanted was to be friends. She hated all this guessing. Trying to figure out when a boy liked her was hard, but trying to figure out when a girl liked her was impossible. 

She spent the time before her maybe-date trying to figure out what to wear. She wanted to wear something that looked artsy but didn't look like she had put in effort to look artsy. She wanted to look casually artsy. Like this was how she dressed on weekends all the time.

She had decided to wear her black button-up shirt. It pulled around the chest, but that's why she had double-sided tape!

Except she was out of double-sided tape.

She sighed, took off the shirt, and pulled on a black turtleneck she hadn't worn in a while. It would have to do.

She did her hair in two French braids that she gathered in a small, low bun, and put on some blue eyeliner and pink lipgloss.

She threw on her fake Sukajan jacket, said bye to her parents, and went out the door.

***

Mira stepped out of the subway and spotted Anna right away.

She was unmissable. She was wearing a leather jacket and black jeans, leaning against the wall outside the subway station, wearing red lipstick.

Mira's heart skipped a beat thinking about how Anna was waiting for her. How of all the people a person like Anna could be waiting for, it was her that she was waiting for.

Mira called out to Anna, and Anna's face lit up.

"Hey," she said. "You look good."

"You look good, too," Mira said, feeling her face smiling way too wide. "I like your jacket."

"Thanks! It was my mom's cousin Connie's! I like your jacket, too."

"Thanks. I got it for twenty dollars at a thrift store. But it's fake."

"That's OK, it's still cute." Anna smiled.

Mira could feel herself staring at Anna. She tried to think of something to say so she wouldn't seem so awkward.

"Anyways," Anna said. "The place isn't far from here. Just about ten minutes."

Anna motioned the direction to Mira and they set off.

The walk was short, but Mira had never been in the neighbourhood before, and she tried to pay attention to landmarks and street names so she would be able to get back to the subway by herself if she had to.

The venue was in an old office building. Anna said that a lot of it was being used as artist spaces, but the new owners were going to turn it into condos, so this was a sort of goodbye party.

"The elevators don't work," Anna said after they had walked in. "But there are stairs this way." She motioned to some broken doors.

Mira wasn't feeling confident that the building wasn't going to collapse. The stairwell was filthy, and she thought she saw a used tampon on the floor.