The Exception to the Rule

by Christina Lauren

Relatedly, this isn’t my kind of party. I’m more a jeans-and-board-games kind of gal. An outdoor-bonfire kind of vibe. This is a wine-and-cheese-and-New-Yorker-articles-discussion party. A what’s-your-favorite-podcast party.

We have this thing, okay?” She picks up a dumpling and holds it aloft, studying it. “We get soup dumplings when we’re thinking about each other.” She was thinking about me.

“Do you ever have a feeling about someone? Like they’re your safe space and, I don’t know, like someday it could be more?” I swallow, nodding. “Yeah. Of course.” I’m looking right at her. “I have a feeling about him.” But the thing is, when she looks up at me and our eyes lock, I’m pretty sure she has a feeling about me, too.

It’s the boy who thanked me for replying to his typo email and who sent me a note the following year to make sure I got at least one valentine. It’s the guy who gave me advice about going away to school and asked me how my mother was doing after having breast cancer. It’s the man who lost his father to cancer in the depths of the pandemic and worried about how to best support his mom and his sisters while still pursuing his dream of going to graduate

school. It’s my soup-dumpling buddy. It’s my conundrum wrapped in a mystery tied with a puzzle shoved in a pickle jar. It’s the only person with whom I ever wanted to share Valentine’s Day even if, this year, we’re three days late.

He walks around the hood and sees me at the same time I see the cupcake box in his hand. Forget flowers; give me a cupcake and it’s a perfect date. After all this time, he remembered?

It’s crazy, I mean, it is c-r-a-z-y, but certainty lands when he says, “Woodbridge,” and I reply, “Uni High,” and he says, “Terra Bernice,” and I reply, “Callum Jude,” and he says, “Rowing,” and I pause and then reply, “You already know I played lacrosse,” and then he cups the side of my neck with his non-cupcake-holding hand and leans in. “Too soon?” he asks, breath minty, his lips only an inch from mine. “I don’t normally kiss before the first date,” I tell him. “But you’re the exception to the rule.”