Blind Date

  She wore a black sweater, her face was hidden behind her bangs and her hood. To the others in the restaurant, she looked like a criminal ready for the heist. She stood on from the side of the wall, peeking over it like the characters in her games.

  She was ready to run away, she didn't want to be their anymore. This is when a young man caught her eyes, he sat alone at a table, but this wasn't odd, there were many others waiting for someone, what was caught her eye was the man's antics. He had spoon hovering over his nose, or rather he was holding onto the spoon with his nose. The simple little act pushed forward a small smile from her and gave her the courage she needed for what had to happen next.

  "Mam" A young waiter called to her, tapping her on the shoulder. She jumped and let out an "EEK!!" The waiters moved backwards as fast as he could raising both hands in the air. Some of the people who noticed this stopped eating.

  "does she have a gun?" one wife asks her husband. This wasn't the case, the woman had no weapon, the man was simply afraid of an accusation and the women had no ill intentions either, she was simply an easy to startle woman.

  So why was such an easy to startle woman in a bust restaurant, "um, uh, S-sir?" she stumbled on her words but managed to start the conversation. The man lowers his arms, and relaxes, he tidies his tie and responds, "yes, what do you need?" he was calm and kind, the best possible person to speak with her.

  "Uhm," she looked like she was trying to say something but her throat hurt, it felt heavy, her vocal chords tightened the more she tried to speak, but she had to say to it, she promised her friend she would.

  "I-I-I ha-ave a date here, I think?" her voice was low and barely audible, but the man was used to women like her, this was thanks to his sister's meek attitude, she saw his younger sister in her. This was perhaps fate, that the only waiter in the restaurant, who wasn't supposed to work that day, spoke to her, any other waiter would probably scare her half to death, she would have run away, she would have never fulfilled her promise, but because it was this man all of it went as smoothly as it could go.

  “do you know what he looks like?” She shook her head fast, the waiter almost felt like stopping it with his hands. Like the thinker, he put his hand to his face. Another stroke of fate, the young man remembered one of the clients telling him that he was having a blind date with someone. Normally he wouldn’t remember but the man had a certain charm to him that any normal person couldn’t ignore. Yes, he remembered his face, his eyes sparkled like child’s and he spoke like one too, or rather he spoke like an adult that never lost his innocence.

  "I'll be right back, wait here" The young woman, who had only just grown from being a girl, nodded as furiously as she shook her head. The young woman peeked over the wall, returning to her suspicious position. She watched the man in the white suit walk towards a young man, not just any man, the man who had, until just a few moments prior to the waiter's arrival, was playing with a spoon. The waiter explained something to him and with a bright smile, the young man nodded his head. The waiter quickly walked back to the young woman and asked, "is your friend named Lianne?" the young woman's heart skipped a beat hearing her best friends name come from a complete stranger, she nodded. "I think that man is your blind date."

  The woman nodded but didn’t move, “are you okay?” she nodded and shuffled her feet towards the stranger. She whimpered a small thanks to the waters as she passed him.

“any time.” the waiter said, sweating slightly as he felt his boss’s presence behind him.

  The young woman stumbled on feet as she walked towards the stranger, the person her friend told her to meet, the man that even her friend had never met before. Her heart beat fast, she was about ready to faint from the exhaustion.

  "Stay right there!!" she jumped, she jumped several inches into the air, nearly a foot, her landing was far from perfect, but it kept her from falling on her bum. "I give it a 10" she turned her head to one side, confused about what was going on. The was wearing a contemplating expression as if to say that he was seriously conserving her odd backwards jump worth of a 10. But a 10 out of what she wondered? Was the point score out of hundred or a thousand? The gamer part of her wanted to know, though not enough to ask outright.

  "anyways stay right there." He said once more. Why had he asked her to stop? Did he not like her appearance, no that's impossible he couldn't possibly see her face with her bangs and the hoody. Then he did the unthinkable, he did something so ridiculous that she nearly jumped again. He extended his arms in the shape of a hug and lifted the entire two-person table off the ground, though it was two-person table to could easily fit three people it wasn't a small table. The whole restaurant sat silent, most of the customers had stopped eating and just stared at the large man lifting a table of the ground moving it five feet and setting it down in front of the woman. He then went to grab the two chairs and placed one on her side and one on his. Ornaments on the table fell to one side but there was no damage to anything other than the knife and work, which had fallen to the ground.

“there we go.” An older man in white attire came speed running towards the two with a look of utter befuddlement on his face.

  "Sir, you can't just move the table." The young man walked toward the older gentleman and whispered something into his ears. The waiter's eyes moved to the young woman, she felt like they were talking about her.

"that doesn't mean you can just move the tables sir," the man's eyes suddenly drooped, he looked down at the floor.

“I’m sorry, I’ll fix it right away.” He walked back to the table and lifted it off the ground. “No, sir just put it down.”

“but you said.”

“Please.” The man put the table down at the waiter’s request. “if you cause any more of a commotion I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“understood” the young man answered as honestly as he could.

  The young woman stood frozen in place, she wasn't good with men like him, men who didn't whatever they wanted without paying attention to their surroundings. He was the opposite of her, he wasn't afraid of social situations, even though he caused such a huge commotion he didn't even flinch, he didn't care that all the eyes in the restaurant were on him.

  "that should get eyes of you, haha" he gave a playful fake laugh. She turned to look around her, he was right, no one was looking at her, as a matter of fact, most people were looking at their food, they felt too uncomfortable to look up and those that didn't mind were look at the young man, ignoring her.

  "but they weren't paying attention until you did that," she responded, he started a big commotion, he brought attention to them in the first place, even if they were bored of it now, didn't mean it wasn't his fault, to begin with.

  “so you’re saying that a woman wearing a black hoody and black jeans is inconspicuous? ” she looked at what she was wearing and finally realized that she was the most suspicious person between the two of them, her cheeks burned red realizing that she looked like a burglar on the hunt for rare jewels. Her heart began to beat fast and her legs grew weak.

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  "if you want we can in this now?" his voice brought her back to reality, she remembered her goal, her promise was to spend at least 15 minutes with her blind date. At most, it had been 10.

“five more minutes” she inaudibly murmured.

“what was that?” the young man asked, his social awareness was either very low or very high, she thought.

“nothing.” She said clearly, she quickly took her seat, the young man followed suit.

  "what would you like to eat?" the young man across from her raised the menu just below his eyes as he slowly lowered his finger across the dishes. He watched her carefully as he did so. The young woman didn't know why but she was following the young man's game, she slowly read the menu items and oddly whenever she felt his finger move to the next item she began to panic but the man would suddenly raise his finger back to the item and wait for her to finish.

The young man saw he mouth twitch, she wanted to say something, which meant she had chosen.

  "Is it this one?" the words he stopped on was caviar. He began to sweat, it was a bit above his price range and by a bit, he thought it was way beyond his price range. He looked back to the girl, she was furiously shaking her head. She moved her hand at lightning speed out of her hoody's lower pocket and lowered the young man's menu, pointing to exactly what she wanted.

  "chicken tenders and French fries." That was certainly what she was pointing to, and when he looked up at her to confirm she was furiously nodding her head.

  "you going to hurt yourself, try to do things a little more slowly" she froze, she pulled her hand back quickly, accidentally knocking over the wine list that sat near the center of the table. She felt like dying, she did something terrible in front of so many people.

  “can you believe that type of unrefined person is allowed to dine here?” a man who sat a few feet away said, not even trying to hide his disdain for the two customers.

  "Hey Moron, shut up." The young man yelled loudly so everyone could hear. Normally he would get kicked out for yelling across the restaurant like that, but the boss was in the back and the person in charge was none other than the young man who helped the young woman get to her table. He heard the man's remark, it was clear he had said it loud enough for her to hear after all the restaurant was a quiet place especially that day since there weren't as many customers.

  "Sir please don't bother other people while they are eating." The man looked at the blonde haired waiter in utter confusion. "me? That man is the.."

  "sit, keep your voice down. You're bothering the others." Why was he so bothered, it was simple, the young girl had a phobia of social situations, she was trying her hardest to even be in the restaurant, it was like looking at his sister who had the same phobia. He wanted to help her.

“let me talk to your boss, right now” the young man gave a sadistic smile.

  "you mean my father?" the man looked at the blonde waiter's chest, there stood his name tag, "Giovanni" he was the son of the restaurant's owner. He couldn't always push his weight around like he did, but he knew his father would allow it for that occasion, he knew this because he didn't kick them out after the young man lifted one of the tables off the ground a moved it closer to the woman. His father wanted to help the young girl the same way he did and the young man who was his date was the type of idiot his father liked.

For this reason, the two’s date continued.

  “is your hand all right?” she was about to furiously shake her head but this time only did it slowly. The young man smiled with a radiance as bright as the sun’s she felt her heart skip a beat. “am I getting scared again” she thought, though the truth was very different.

  "so your friend's name is Lianne right?" she gently nodded. "Max talks about her all the time, I've never seen him so in love with a girl before. Is it the same for Lianne?" the young girl remembered her dearest friends a few days prior, it was her first year anniversary with Max and she was going to go on a date with him, it was the happiest she had ever seen her.

  The young woman nods her head. " that good to hear." The young man's smile hits her hard, she loses her breath for a moment, she didn't know what was going on. The young man's glee for the happiness of his friend made her feel strange, it made her feel that he could trust the young man who sat across from her.

“do you have any hobbies?” she doesn’t respond, the waiter arrives, and she looks down at the table not wanting to look anyone in the eyes.

  “we’ll have two orders of chicken tenders.” The waiter flinches for a moment, “chicken tenders sir?” the young man smiles such an innocent smile that the waiter’s annoyance was suddenly suppressed. He felt like he was looking at his own son. “yes, and two orders of apple juice.” Her ears perked up, how did he know she loved apple juice?

“will that be all?” the man nodded at the waiter quickly headed to the kitchen to send in the order.

“I-I, like art.” She finally responded.

"Oh, I like art too, but it's more of a hobby. Do you have a sketchbook?" the young woman nods.

  "I'm guessing you probably don't want to show me." The young woman slumps her shoulders and places on hand on each of her arms as if to shake the cold away. "no, its okay, I feel shy about my sketchbook too. you don’t have to show me if you don’t want to. But next time I’ll show you mine if that’s okay with you.”

  She didn’t acknowledge the question, nodding meant that she would have to meet him again, she didn’t know if she wanted that to happen yet, she didn’t know if her heart could take it.

  “you know what the coolest shape is?” he didn’t even flinch at her non-response, he wasn’t scared of asking her a different question, he was the opposite of her and she didn’t like it.

  "it's the triangle because with just a triangle you can make any shape, isn't that cool?" as the young man was talking she took out her phone to check the time, it was well past 15 minutes, 16 whole minutes had already passed an entire minute longer than she had too.

  "Hey!" she jumps in her chair, she didn't expect such a strong and forceful voice to come from the man across from her, he had been gentle with her until then. But he suddenly did a one-eighty. Her hands began to tremble, it was best if she just left.

  Just as she was about to get up, the mans angered voices shook her, she felt a small pain well up in her chest, right were her heart was, "Don't just start looking at your phone, it's rude, if you want to leave just leave don't insult me like that. It's more embarrassing to have your date bored out of their mind across from me than having them just get up and leave."

She didn’t move, no, her muscles relaxed, and she sat back down. She didn’t say anything, and the normally chatty man didn’t speak either.

  She looked at the man across from her, he looked sad to her, what she did must have really hurt him. She wanted to apologize and then quickly leave but she couldn’t must up the courage to do so.

“…” the word sorry just wouldn’t escape her lungs. She shuts her eyes as tightly as she can, takes a deep breath as if ready to shout.

  “I’m sorry.” She heard the words he had been meaning to say, but they weren’t coming from her mouth, they came from his. He was apologizing to her, she didn’t understand she was the one being rude. She was the one who was about to leave him alone to eat two orders of chicken tenders and apple juice.

  "Max told me you're easily scared, you probably just wanted to look at to distract you, I'm sorry." He his eyes looked repentant, he looked as if he had committed a grave crime and was begging the victim for forgiveness.

  "I'm sorry too." she was finally able to let those words escape her lips. "I won't look at my phone again, I promise." With that single promise, she not only agreed to stop checking the time but to also finish the date properly.

  An hour went by and it looked like the young man always had a strange new story to tell, from the time he was lost in woods to time he was rescued by a stranger from a wild dog. The young women didn't speak much but she smiled whenever the young man would obviously inflate the truth like saying that the dog had hundreds of jagged teeth or that he saw a creature that jumped from tree to tree like a monkey but had the appearance of a squid and a dog. Every new story he told widened her smile. They talked about other things like games, they talked about how he wanted the latest game, she did too of course but which of the latest games she wanted became a guessing game. It took ten tries and it turned out that the latest game she wanted was a game from the previous year.

  "that was fun!" the young man said with his typical small and yet radiant smile. Her heart skipped another beat, it did whenever that smile was directed her.

"will we be doing this again." She didn't respond, she didn't nod, she stood motionless looking at her feet.

  "I'll take you home, it's getting a bit late." Her heart twisted inside her, it felt like something had just stabbed her heart but when she put a single hand on her chest, there was nothing there.

  “I’m glad I met you.” The young women gave the weakest nod she had given that night, so small in fact that the young man only barely noticed it.

  The young man walked her home, she didn’t say goodbye, instead to ran towards the small metal gate protecting her house, closed it and ran to her door, opening it and then running directly into her room where she jumped on her bed covered herself with the blankets and started to cry.

  “I guess she didn’t like me that much” the young man who still stood outside felt the pulsating of his chest tighten. It hurt him but he only showed a smile, a smile who radiance weaken.

The sun was gone and so was the moon, all that remained was a vast and empty sky.

“Just thinking about…”

“Just thinking about…”

  Unbeknownst to the other, the two began to sing the same song at the same time, although they were far apart, the song they sang was certainly a duet.