The Exception to the Rule

by Christina Lauren

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.

You’d come back just to see me?

Without question.

And I will, also without question, come home when you’re there. Let me know the dates you’ll be in Irvine, and I’ll be there, too.

“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.

“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.”

Callum laughs again. The sound is addictive.

As if it isn’t enough that it’s Callum Sundberg picking me up in—oh, shit—five minutes, it’s also that it’s C. 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.

“I don’t normally kiss before the first date,” I tell him. “But you’re the exception to the rule.”

I win. I love you.

Are we still going to be emailing each other from the same couch on Valentine’s Day in fifty years?