PERFECT PLACES

Jonathan (5)

The text, sent three hours and fourteen minutes after I left Wing 4 or one hundred and fifty two phone checks later, read:

"Hey John, thanks for the message, it was very sweet of you to come find my room and deliver a hand-written note. I think you've earned a coffee date! When and where do you want to meet?"

My phone almost fell out of my shaking hands as I read over the message a second, third, and fourth time. I started to smile and then I felt tears coming down my face. I read the message a fifth time. And a sixth.

While reading it a sixth time, I realized that my text receipt revealed to her that I had seen the message immediately after receiving it, because my checking process had worked and I had discovered the text about twenty seconds after it was sent to my phone. I realized that she might have already noticed that I had read the message and maybe even found it weird that I had seen it so quickly. I hoped she didn't realize that I had been waiting impatiently for her to answer.

I started typing an answer and I thought carefully about what to say. Now that I had her attention, I really, really needed to keep it and hold onto it for as long as possible. I also wanted to see her as soon as realistically possible, without coming on too strong.

After about five minutes of re-writing, I sent her this:

"Hey! I'm free tomorrow until noon, or Tuesday/Wednesday afternoon, or really any time later in the week if you're busy the next few days. We could try the student coffee house, or Starbucks?"

I pressed send, then locked my phone, to make it so that if she answered soon it didn't seem like I had kept my phone open waiting for a response. But I needed to keep my phone in my hands and my face on the screen. My heart was pounding through my chest and in my temples again, but I knew this time that I was not having a panic attack and instead I just had a lot of nervous energy.

I was still completely in awe that she had sent a message to me and had been so receptive of my note and actually WANTED to go on a date with me.

One of the things that I had thought the most about while I was waiting for her to text me back was the possibility that she had only talked to me last night to talk to someone new at the party. And that she didn't actually want to follow through with the interaction, outside of that setting. This sudden realization that I might be rejected had been extremely distressing, so instead of going to my lecture this morning and ignoring the professor and daydreaming and checking my phone every two minutes, I stayed at home and just thought over and over again about my letter, and tried to distract myself by listening to the National.

After three minutes had passed since I sent my second text with no answer, I thought about putting the music back on to distract myself again. But I was really, really hoping that she would answer soon, because I had a mandatory lab in twenty five minutes and I really needed to go to it. I really needed her to answer so that I could potentially reply to her again and finish setting up these plans with her, before having to go to class not knowing what was happening.

If the plans were not completely established before the lab started, then I would not be able to focus in the lab. And because my TA would be watching me the entire time, I would have to leave to go to the washroom to check my phone. I knew that I would only be able to do this once without looking suspicious or weird, and the lab was two hours long so it would be impossible to go that long without checking my phone more than once. So I would have to actually check my phone in class and the TA might notice and get angry and embarrass me in front of everyone.

"I tried the student "coffee" house already, that stuff is gross. Starbucks works though! I'm free tomorrow at around 11 if that isn't too late?"

I realized that I had opened it quickly again and this time it was almost instantly, so it was very likely that she had just seen me read the text as soon as she had pressed send. But because I knew that I'd already messed up this time, I just went ahead and answered her without thinking too much about it.