Page 43 of Clinically Awkward

Vivi: That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

Me: It’s strategic. I’m working on my hand-eye coordination.

Vivi: You’re a doctor. You already have excellent hand-eye coordination.

Me: There’s always room for improvement.

Vivi: You’re ridiculous.

Me: So is that a yes?

The three dots appeared, and I held my breath.

Vivi: Got to change first. Give me twenty minutes.

I stared at the screen.

Twenty minutes.

She was coming over. In twenty minutes. To my apartment.

I looked around. The pizza box was open on the coffee table. There were three empty beer bottles next to it. My tennis ball was on the floor. The TV was still playing the infomercial. The woman was now demonstrating the proper way to apply leave-in conditioner.

I had twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes to make my apartment look like a functional adult lived here.

Twenty minutes to hide the evidence of my pathetic evening.

Twenty minutes to figure out what the hell I was doing.

I jumped off the couch, grabbed the pizza box, and closed it. I collected the beer bottles and took them to the kitchen. I picked up the tennis ball and threw it in the basket by the door, where it lived with three other tennis balls I had accumulated over the years for reasons I couldn’t explain. I turned off the TV. The sudden silence was deafening as I stood in the middle of my living room and looked around.

It was clean.

Okay, it was relatively clean, but clean enough. The couch was fine. The coffee table was fine. The bookshelf was—I looked at the bookshelf.

It was organized by genre, then alphabetically by author within each genre. Which was normal. Totally normal. Lots of people organized their books that way.

I was fine. This was fine.

Everything was fine.

Except. Except I had just invited Vivian Darcy to my apartment. Vivian, who had a boyfriend. Vivian, who I was definitely, absolutely, 100% not in love with. Vivian, who was going to be here in—I checked my phone—seventeen minutes.

I sat down on the couch and then stood up before sitting down again.

What was I doing?

This was a terrible idea. This was possibly the worst idea I had since I decided to buy those concert tickets. The concert I wanted to take Vivi to. The concert that had started this whole thing. This whole mess of feelings and rationalizations and weekend plans and dinner reservations and now—now she was coming to my apartment.

Because I invited her. Because I was an idiot. Because I couldn’t help myself. Because the thought of her sitting in some bar alone, drinking a beer, thinking about her terrible date, made my chest hurt. Because I wanted to see her.

I wanted to make her laugh. I wanted to sit next to her on my couch and share cold pizza and listen to her complain about whatever Colton had done to earn that angry emoji. I wanted her here.

In my space. Close enough to touch.

Which was dangerous.