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I set aside the folder of light pinks I just sorted through and shove the rest of the pinks at Seth to sort. Returning to the cabinets, I start sorting through the drawers and removing the folders with blue gels in them, tucking them under my arm as I find them.
“Okay, I know you didn’t really ask for this, but I have a suggestion, and just . . . hear me out,” Seth says.
I pause for just long enough to give him a suspicious glare.
“What if you just . . . tried it? You’ve never even kissed someone you weren’t in a relationship with, so, like . . . how do you know that, like, doesn’t work for you?”
“In the same way I know dirt would not taste good if I tried to eat it.”
But Seth is making a point that’s tapping into a long-running insecurity of mine. Before my first girlfriend and my first kiss, there was a girl, Carmen, who had a crush on me. We were both involved in a production at Red Barn Playhouse the spring of my eighth grade year. Carmen would hang around me a lot, coming to find me in the tech booth at each rehearsal, where even the tech director would point out her crush. It wasn’t mutual, but I was always nice to her. After the show, I was at a cast party at the director’s house, and all the kid actors and kids of actors were hanging out in the basement while the adults hung out upstairs. Carmen and I started talking, and at some point, she leaned in like she was going to kiss me. I leaned away and told her I didn’t want to.
“Why not?” she’d asked, clearly offended but also curious.
“Because I don’t like kissing people I don’t know,” I’d said.
“But how do you know unless you try?”
I’d just shaken my head and told her, “No, thank you.”
She respected my refusal, but her words haunted me for years. I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something wrong with me. All my friends kissed whoever, whenever, and it didn’t matter to them, but I couldn’t imagine doing that, so I just . . . didn’t.
Seth’s now bringing up the exact thing I’ve been considering for years. Maybe I should just try it once to make sure. When am I going to have an opportunity like this again?
“Listen, there’s no pressure, okay? You’re allowed to show up to Jade’s apartment tonight and just ask to talk or have a couple beers and play Monopoly, whatever you’d rather do instead. She’s not going to make out with you against your will. Just . . . keep an open mind and try not to get in your head about it.”
I nod and take an armful of folders to the table, where Seth has made it through three shades of green. I withhold any comments about his working pace—he is doing me a favor, after all—and instead flip through the folders myself.
Seth is right. I do get in my head about—well, everything. My dad says overthinking is under-feeling, and I try to remember that when I start to mentally spiral. Which I’m not doing yet, but I am in my head running through all the possibilities.
What if I show up and ask her if we can just talk or play a game?
What if we make out just so I can see if my need for a connection is real?
What if I cancel?
What if I pretend like it’s a method-acting thing? Jade and I could pretend to be our characters and kiss as our characters. Would that be weird?
“I can see you thinking,” Seth says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yeah, I’m just . . .”
“I know what you’re doing.” Seth reaches for the folders of pinks I brought over, finally done with the greens. “And stop it.Just go over there tonight and trust yourself that you’re going to be able to make a decision once you’re there.”
It’s a good idea in theory, but trusting myself has never been easy. Trusting someone else to decide is a much safer path. They probably know more than I do and can make a better decision.
That’s why I was hoping Seth would help me make this decision today, but Seth thinks I should hook up with her because that’s what he would do.
Maybe Seth is onto something. He knows way more about acting and scene partners than I do, and he’s definitely hooked up with a lot more people.
I might not know how to trust myself, but I do know how to trust other people—and even though I’m not totally convinced hooking up is the best way to build chemistry, I’m willing to be wrong. Seth said to have an open mind, and of all the things that have been asked of me recently, this sounds like something I can actually do.
I should have grabbed a basket.But now I’m standing in front of the flower section of the grocery store holding a box of condoms with no way to hide them. I try to tuck them under my arm, but now I look really awkward, so I hold them in my hand again. I don’t want to put them in my pocket, because then it’ll look like I’m stealing them, and the last thing I want right now is for someone to accuse me of stealing condoms. The imagined horror of the scenario makes me anxious enough that I have to wipe a line of sweat off the top of my lip.
As for the condoms, I said I’d keep an open mind, but even this feels a little too far. Kissing someone I don’t really know or care about is one thing. Sex is . . . off the table. But Jadesaid “bring condoms,” and even if she doesn’t need them for me, maybe she just needs them. In general. For other people. If she needed tampons, I would have gotten those too.
I want to pick up some beer too, as Seth suggested some liquid courage could help, but as I passed by the flowers on my way to the checkout, my dad’s voice practically screamed at me,“Never show up to a woman’s house without a gift.”
I don’t know Jade at all. I’ve heard her name in the theater, I’ve heard the rumors, and I spent roughly ninety minutes next to her the other night at rehearsal, and then maybe two minutes in a one-on-one conversation, but I can’t even begin to guess what flowers she might like, if she likes them at all.
