Kiss Her Once for Me

by Alison Cochrun

“I don’t know…. I can put things off for a shockingly long time if potential rejection is involved,” I inform her.

I bristle at the dilemma she’s placed before me. Ari means this invitation as a kindness, but my social anxiety is of the crippling variety.

“You’re like if Zooey Deschanel stopped taking her Lexapro.” I hold my hands in a prayer pose beneath my chin. “My kingdom for off-brand escitalopram.”

I don’t mention that a third of the women on the dating apps here are married ladies with a “hall pass” or couples looking for a bisexual to be their third, neither of which particularly appeal to my demi-ass self.

“You know what would cheer you up?” “Pie?” “Leaving your apartment,” Meredith says bluntly. “I’ve never heard of that kind of pie. Do they sell it at Fred Meyer?”

Ari raises a single eyebrow. “I thought you said you had plans tonight.” “Yes,” I say. “Plans to cry.”

Standing in front of her now as this Ellie—the Ellie who lost everything, the Ellie who failed, the Ellie who stopped believing in most things—I’m not sure what I regret more: my past naivete or my present cynicism.

“Yes. It seems like we’ve had some kind of miscommunication about what happened last year. Miscommunications are for the straights,” she says with self-righteous indignation. “We are going to talk this out.”

And people are always making a fuss about male forearms, which, sure, are nice, but have these people never seen the tattooed forearms of a butch lesbian?