The Exception to the Rule

by Christina Lauren

I am the exception to the rule.

I’m the exception to the rule.

I like a lot of things, but I don’t LOVE any one thing. It feels scary, you know? To worry I might commit to something because I have to but not because I love it.

I know we don’t know each other, really, and I don’t have any idea where you’re going to school, but in the past six years of change and chaos, you’ve been a constant. We come from the same hometown so in a way we do know each other. Or at least, we know where we come from. Maybe someday, way in the future, we’ll run into each other back in Irvine and I’ll just somehow know it’s you.

Summers are boob sweat and crowds.

You were destined to win this year since I would absolutely not be the first to send the email after asking a taken man out on a date last year!

More to the point, however, is that it suddenly feels unfaithful to be shut up in a room with Kristen when I asked T out tonight.

“Oh. That. Yes. Very ready for it. Ready to take it, I mean.” I pause, swallowing. Why does this eye contact feel like foreplay? “I’m referring to the exam.”

“We get soup dumplings when we’re thinking about each other.” She was thinking about me.

This is crazy! My middle name is Mango! No it isn’t, I’m just kidding. It’s Bernice,

LOL this is funny for no reason

“Can I take you out to dinner?” His question comes out of absolutely nowhere, and my fists drop like stones. “What?” “Dinner.” He cutely mimes spooning food into his mouth. “Sun goes down. People eat.” “Like a date?” “I hope so? I intend to flirt.”

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.

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?

Without question.