Sarah's apartment was in a rough part of town, a fact that was unexpected as he had imagined her as very successful and well put together. She had clearly been waiting for him as she left the front door very shortly after he pulled up, meeting him far before he could get close to her building and dragged him away, she didn't look particularly dressed up but this put him at ease. He didn't know if it was appropriate for them to kiss or hug or if this was even a real date but thankfully she hugged him, said he looked lovely and suggested they walk to a restaurant around the corner.

"You look very beautiful too, but don't you want to go somewhere different? I'm sure you've been to these local places a lot"

"I mean, we can if you want but I have never been there"

"Ok, sounds good then"

They didn't talk much on the way there but he didn't feel uncomfortable from this, he didn't feel pressured to talk to her and instead his mind was just trying to imagine what it must be like for someone to live in this local neighbourhood and he tried to come up with topics of conversation for later in the date.

They reached the restaurant which was pretty generic and sat down, he looked around for a bit just killing time while he tried to think of the best way to open the conversation when she spoke.

"You walk weird, it's like you are trying to walk along a line even though there isn't one there, it makes me think you might be slightly autistic"

He liked how she had just come out and said this potentially offensive statement and not even tried to test if it was appropriate first. Most people would have paused after 'you walk weird' to try and read you, either physically or your response to it, they would see if it is a touchy subject to you and whether you deem it appropriate enough for them to comment on, they would see if you want further explanation and how open you are for honest further explanation so they could manipulate your emotions with what they said. If you seemed unreceptive they would walk back what they truly wanted to say or what they actually think with something like 'I don't know, just different', try and make it something neutral again but instead she just said her honest thoughts and took a risk. If it is manipulation then it's the acceptable form of manipulation of making someone like you as that is mutually beneficial, both people benefit, one gets someone to like them and the other finds someone to like.

He further liked this comment because it was accurate, he did walk odd, when he was walking on his own if he didn't think anyone was paying attention to him he would walk along things on the ground such as cracks, spaces between tiles or other markings, overtime this influenced his natural way of walking to be somewhat between a natural walk and walking across a tight rope like she said. He couldn't work out what would be nicer, if she was the first person to ever notice this about him or if simply she was the only one bold enough to say it.

"Hmmm, I know what you mean, there is a reason for it, it's odd but yeah, you have a good eye"

"Well" she said

"What?" but she didn't respond for a few seconds "oh, the reason for it, sure, um, it's just nothing I have told anyone before so I never thought about whether it was right to tell people and I don't know, I thought you might have something more interesting to talk about"

"This is very interesting, I have things to talk about but I don't want to force them"

"Well usually if I'm walking with no one around ill try to walk on top of things, like the order of priority is ill walk along cracks or edges between concrete or markings or whatever, so I guess even when I'm not walking along them it changes how I walk"

"That's sweet"

"I think I've always done it, well obviously not always but it's for as long as I can remember, if I had to guess it would be because when I was a kid I was shy and would look down as i walked so i had to find interesting things to focus on so i followed them and then the habit just stuck as I got older, honestly, I don't even really look down now, I can just see them out of the corner or rather bottom of my eye and follow them"

"I was a shy kid too, I used to always play music on the ground with my fingers like tapping songs I had heard, it wouldn't matter if my tapping didn't make sounds, I would feel them in my head or rather the impact of my fingers would be the sound to me in a way, I don't know what I mean but I think that is why I fidget so much with my hands now when I am talking to someone like right now, I don't tap out songs but the habit remains"

Really? I tell her this very autistic fact of myself and she just accepts it, who the fuck is this girl?

"Sorry to not be as aware as you but to be honest I hadn't noticed your fidgeting, or maybe I did but didn't think enough about it to become consciously aware about it, maybe I just thought it was natural for nerves or something but then I guess I should have noticed that you are nervous, that is what people should do on dates, right? notice how the other person is feeling and react to it, like I should notice if you are nervous and try and calm you"

"It's fine, you're not responsible for my emotions, sure, I can give you the benefit of the doubt, it's pretty normal comparatively to fidget with your fingers compared to your odd walk, I can give you the benefit of the doubt that you would have noticed eventually, when you would see a time when I'm not nervous yet still doing it"

"Why are you so nice to me?"

"Dunno, I find it fun to be nice to you"

He had no idea how to respond to that, it sounded harsh to his ears as it sounded like she was just messing with him and not being honest but to his heart it sounded lovely but still he didn't know what to say, thankfully she continued.

"How is your poem going?"

"Umm" he only hesitated for a moment before she spoke again.

"That's my first predetermined topic of conversation, I'm kind of embarrassed I resorted to the most generic topic first, the most obvious one, sorry, I'm boring but I have been aching for an update"

"No, I understand, the normal path from most obvious topics to branching out is normal for a reason, if it's not confronted than the absence of confronting it will... um I'm doing what I was just about to criticise, my poem, umm, I haven't been making much progress, I've had other things on my mind"

"Like?"

He more or less recounted his thoughts on coincidences that he wrote on his computer that we have already conveyed, while she would make small relevant interjections or responses at times, she more or less let him speak for 10 minutes uninterrupted until he had finished describing the types of people too prone to conspiracies or too adverse to them, how either extreme can make someone doubt their reality and how he had been doubting his reality due to many coincidences lately after which she made her first real comment on the topic.

"Yeah, I know what you mean, I mean I never really thought of it but it makes sense. I hate when people look down on people who go crazy or fuck up their own lives, like I get it, there is an element of control people have, some people are better at resisting weird circumstances without breaking down but sometimes it just cant be helped, sometimes peoples experiences are so odd that they would force anyone to go crazy. Or maybe they're not, I don't know, no one can know unless they experience it, you cant really say a lot of people going crazy is justified since their experiences were so weird as that would be a contradiction like everyone's life cant be weird or weird would be normal. I don't really know what I'm saying at this point"

"Nah, yeah, I know what you mean, like if there isn't anything supernatural then yeah, only 1 in a million people would have experiences that could be 1 in a million but in another sense maybe modern humanity is so disconnected from physical reality these days that more people can lack the tools to rationalise their lives"

She responded by mentioning a movie that reminded her of this topic, a movie unfamiliar to Ast so he enquired further and she ended up explaining the whole plot to him and what she liked about it, what she found special about it and how she might change the movie. He responded with another suggestion of how the plot could be altered to be more interesting and she understood his opinion but disagreed. He then went on about another different but similar movie and they repeated this exchanging of movies for the next hour or so, more or less taking turns while the other worked on their dinner or just listened respectfully with rare interjections. He made her laugh really hard at one point and he noticed how it made him feel real. Later she was describing a movie and she mentioned a graveyard and while he kept listening to her his mind wouldn't stop going back to his graveyard related story to the point that he really wanted to talk about it to her, initially he thought it was a terrible topic for a first date, not only morbid but also to bring up an ex on a first date should always be a topic to avoid but in the end this forbidden nature of it only made him want to talk about it more. How interesting he felt it would be for their story of their first date to be 'she called me autistic and then I started talking about graveyards and my ex', he also wanted to tell her this idea for his romantic version of meeting someone as soon as possible into the relationship incase she was willing to participate in this 'lie' with him, so they could tell others this fake story right from the start so the 'truth' never gets leaked to anyone and the universe other than the inhuman time/space is none the wiser.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"You know how you said that he lived next to a graveyard? I know this is a bad story to tell and I shouldn't tell it but I want to tell it for some reason that I'm not entirely sure about, well anyway, the truth is, I have or probably had a girlfriend but we had been drifting apart for a long time and I think it's beyond the point where we have split up now, I don't know but I think we are completely done but anyway, our last big argument was basically related to graveyards and I think it's an interesting story, sorry to bring up ex's, I hate to hear it but it's really just about the story if that's ok"

"Yeah, go on, I'm listening"

"So what happened was I had this idea that it would be really romantic if two people met romantically in a graveyard when both people were there just for a walk or whatever, romantic because barely anyone goes for a walk through a graveyard, they only go there for a reason, I mean I have only gone to a graveyard twice in my life for fun, most people are probably below that, so I think it would be romantic just because how rare it must be for two people to meet in those circumstances and not only that but strike up a flirty conversation and be interested in each other and stay together for an extended period, and well also there is something poetic about people starting a new meaningful or possibly the most meaningful period of their lives in a place such as a graveyard, basically they are starting their new lives together or possibly you could say they are finally starting their real lives from a graveyard, a place of death, life coming from a place of death but not only that it's something to do with like how they are doing what the dead among them cant, they are making the most of life and having real meaningful experiences, developing connections, some people don't take advantage of these possibilities of life and are essentially dead inside so it's like they are contrasted with the dead, i don't know, I'm rambling at this point and probably from the start, I haven't refined my ideas too well"

"I get it, I think it's very romantic, so what happened?"

"You mean with my ex?"

"Of course"

"Well I don't really know, she said things like it wasn't romantic or that lying is bad but I don't think that's the real cause, I think there are lots of things that happened, she just didn't really care to see things from my perspective, we had drifted apart and she was bitter and she no longer wanted to think anything I said was interesting not because it wasn't interesting but like she refused to give me any credit, she didn't want to see any good in me, she wanted to move on. I think also accepting this idea requires two people to want to create beautiful interesting stories together even if it's at the expense of everyone else, whether they have to lie and trick others, even harm them, nothing is off limits for them creating beautiful stories but she just no longer had that interest in me so she couldn't relate to putting our own personal interests above the interest of others or above truth"

"Yeah, it's a strange one, I guess you could pick it apart forever but I guess the easiest explanation is that you were just two different people"

"I guess"

"I'm trying to be nice to her, to assume she had some valid reason but if I'm being honest, it sounds like you are in the right and she was in the wrong, meaning not just that you were two different people but that you were a better person"

"I don't know"

"Oh... you still like her, interesting. Do you think that's a thing? people being better than others?"

"I like to think not but I think so, I think it's harsh to think this but I justify it to myself by saying there are a lot of different areas people can be better or worse, like there are people who are better than others on average but even then no one will be better than anyone else in every way, at least I don't think so but just in the meaningful ways"

"Yeah, why did you want to tell me this though? were you just bragging about how deep and romantic you are?"

"Well, I, um, maybe, I don't know, it felt right"

"I'm just teasing"

"Yeah sure, I guess, I did want to ask if you would be open to it, not just open to it but I wanted to ask if you will do it, if you will let our official" he actually did air quotes while saying official then cringed internally "story of how we met to be that we met in a graveyard"

"I know you wanted to ask this, I just wanted to know if you wanted to ask it enough to actually ask it without me basically forcing you to ask it"

"Did you force me?"

"I actually don't know, I fucked up, I didn't give you a chance to ask it before I asked why you were telling me"

"We both fucked up then, also, is that something you might do? I mean go to a graveyard just for a walk"

"Yeah, I don't think I have but I don't think it's something I couldn't ever do"

"Do I need to ask again, let's say we met in a graveyard?"

"Here is the thing, I hope you can handle this coincidence, we did meet in a graveyard"

He thought she was just committing to the lie hard enough to the point that she would from this point on never admit it was a lie but he misread her.

"Cool, this is nice"

"You know what I mean?"

"I think so, we did, we always did, we never met at Laurent Park"

"Oh, I see, you don't get it, you think I'm just committed to the lie"

"Well now clearly not if you call it a lie so no, what do you mean?"

"You know that bench we met?"

"Obviously"

"Shh, It was rhetorical, I paused for effect and so you could visualise it, just let me speak"

"Sorry"

"You know that bench we met?" he nodded, she continued "well that bench is actually more like a gravestone for Steve Laurent, the guy who donated the park to the city, he was buried on that hill and there is a little plaque on the back of it explaining that"

"Really?"

"No shit, it's strange, right? to be buried on a hill"

"Yeah, but I mostly meant the coincidence, but yeah it's strange"

"Like when people look at the hill they are essentially looking at his dead body, assuming they have x-ray vision and depending on how much he has decayed"

"Probably stranger because people don't even know this"

"I'm sure some do but I only know because I felt the plaque one time when resting my arm in a weird way"

"Right, I always thought it was weird how few people come to that part of the park, maybe people can sense it's a graveyard, do you believe in that sort of thing?"

"I can think of some real reasons people might avoid that spot but yeah, there might be some room for there to be a supernatural factor in why they avoid it too, supernatural? superstitious?"

"I think both words are fine"

"The dude was a piece of shit, I looked him up, made his fortune making porn or rather producing porn, what I mean is he wasn't in the porn, he just managed companies for it and such"

"This is good dinner conversation"

"Yeah well yeah, but I mean he probably donated the park as a way to atone for his sins, to finally create something wholesome in the world"

"It's kind of ironic if he did and then makes part of it a graveyard as if he cant do anything right in the world"

"I think it's fine, it's interesting and harmless"

"I guess, that is what matters, interesting"

"Well like if he didn't make the porn someone else would, supply and demand"

"Yeah but I don't know, sometimes demand can fade if there is less supply of it, like how people fight addiction, I wasn't arguing with you though, I do think it's interesting"

"Yeah, you have a point, I don't know"

"Neither"

"Hey"

"Hey"

"I had a good time tonight, Ast"

"I had a good time tonight, Sarah" he reached for her hand but she moved it away at the exact same time, so close that he couldn't tell if it was a response or intentional.

"I want to leave it here, if that's ok, I think it's an interesting ending, we can do something again whenever you think is best"

"Sure, we can also do it when you want if you think of a good time"

"Yeah but I want you to decide because I don't know, I want to say because I'm a woman but it's not exactly that, I just think you are leading our shared story in some way"

"Shared story, it's a nice term"

"Yeah, call me"

"You know this isn't goodbye, we still have to pay and I will walk you back"

"Yeah, I know but I'm sort of ending the formal part you know, I'm like changing the level"

"What is the new level?"

"Dunno, maybe like the walk here, where we mostly just coexist but that's fine"

"You can pay"

"You can pay"

"I was joking"

"Same"

"I will pay"

"Ok"

He paid, walked her home, kissed her on the cheek and left without much fuss, he had a wonderful time and replayed the date and every word over and over during the drive home and the rest of the night. One particular point stuck out to him surrounding what they didn't talk about, how they still hadn't discussed objective things such as where they grew up, what their jobs were etc. it didn't matter to him and he hoped she felt the same way, that the mundane details of her day to day life were unimportant in comparison to her soul, her ideals and her vision and openness to participate in and create a beautiful shared story. It was fairly late by the time he got home and he felt at peace, he stayed sober for once and listened to more old romantic pop music