Jordan Bennett
I sat with it for a while after I got home.
What Savannah said was still in my head. Not because it was complicated. Because it was simple and I was trying to figure out what doing it actually looked like. You cannot sit around thinking about someone and call that trying. That is just wanting something and not moving toward it. I had done that long enough.
I thought about Maddy. What she would like. What she would not. What would come across as real and what would come across as a move. There is a difference and she would know the difference immediately. Maddy has been around guys doing things for effect her whole life. Whatever I did had to actually be something.
I sat there for maybe twenty more minutes. Then I got in the car.
* * *
Her mom answered the door.
She looked at me for a second like she was trying to place me. I told her my name and said I was looking for Maddy. She looked at me a moment longer, then said to hold on and went inside.
I waited on the step. I could hear the house behind the door. TV somewhere. A voice calling. Then footsteps.
Maddy came out. She had clearly not been expecting anyone. Hair half up, oversized shirt, no makeup. She looked at me and then at the car and then back at me.
"What are you doing here?" she said.
"I want you," I said.
She blinked.
I kept going before she could say anything. "And if I want you I have to make the effort. So come on. We are going to get food."
She looked at me for a second. Something moved across her face that she did not quite manage to keep down. Then she smiled. Small, like she was trying not to.
"Somewhere good?" she said.
"Somewhere good," I said. I stepped back and opened the passenger door.
She looked at the open door. Then she went back inside for maybe two minutes, came back with shoes on and her phone in her hand, and got in without saying anything.
I closed the door and went around to the driver's side.
* * *
I drove and I talked. I told her about the morning,, about something my neighbor did said that was genuinely stupid. I kept it easy. Nothing that required anything from her. I was just filling the car with something other than silence and seeing if she would come to meet it.
She did not.
She was looking out the window. Not cold, not hostile. Just somewhere else. Like she had decided to observe the situation from a distance before committing to being in it.
I gave it a few more minutes. Then I pulled over.
Not dramatically. Just pulled into a side street and stopped the car and turned to look at her.
She looked back at me.
I reached over and put two fingers under her chin, lightly, and turned her face toward mine.
"Look," I said. "I like you. I am not going to pretend otherwise and I am not going to keep doing all the talking. But I am also not going to force you to be here. If this is a waste of time, tell me now and I will take you home and we are good. No weirdness."
She held my eyes for a second. I let her look.
Then she said, "My love language is acts of service."
I did not say anything. I just listened.
"And words of affirmation," she continued. "Not the generic kind. Specific. Like you noticed something and you are actually saying it, not just being nice."
"Okay," I said.
She shifted in the seat so she was facing me a little more. Like she had made a decision somewhere in the last ten seconds and was acting on it.
"I like thriller movies," she said. "Not horror. Thriller. There is a difference. I like when the tension is psychological, not just someone getting chased."
"What else," I said.
"I hate being ignored. I do not mean clingy. I just mean if you say you are going to do something, do it. If you are not going to, say that instead. I would rather you tell me you are not coming than have you just not show up."
"That is fair," I said.
"I like nice restaurants but I do not need them all the time. I also like just driving. Like this. Just going somewhere without a plan."
She paused. Looked out the windshield for a second.
"I am not easy," she said. "I already know that about myself. I am not going to pretend I am something low maintenance when I am not."
"I know," I said. "I am not looking for low maintenance."
She looked back at me. Studying.
"Why me?" she said. "Like actually. Not the pretty answer."
I thought about it for a real second. Then I said, "Because you know who you are. Not perfectly. But you have a read on yourself that most people do not have. And when you drop the performance, even for a minute, you are one of the most honest people I have ever been around."
She was quiet for a moment.
"That is a pretty good answer," she said.
"I told you it was not the pretty answer."
She almost smiled. Turned back toward the windshield.
"Okay," she said. "Take me somewhere good."
I pulled back out onto the street.
Neither of us said anything for a minute. The silence was different from before. Not her being somewhere else. Just two people sitting in the same space, both present, neither needing to fill it.
I thought about what Savannah said. For real, not halfway.
This was a start.