The Things We Couldn't Pretend Anymore

By then, the songs had become part of the routine.

A song in the morning. 

A video in the afternoon. 

A message waiting somewhere in between.

The Concert Guy sent me another one that day.

What Everybody Knows by Marc Dorsey.

I smiled the moment I saw the title. 

It had always been one of my favorites.

"My brother sings that at karaoke," I told him.

It was a simple conversation.

Or at least it started that way.

Most of our conversations did.

They would begin with music.

Or the weather.

Or what we were doing at that exact moment.

Then somehow, without either of us planning it, we would find ourselves somewhere else entirely.

That day was no different.

I don't remember exactly how we got there.

Only that somewhere between the song and the silence that followed, I found myself asking a question I hadn't meant to ask.

"When you asked for my number that night, did you ever think I wouldn't give it to you?"

His answer arrived almost immediately.

"Yes."

Then another message.

"Because I've never done that before."

I laughed.

"Except that Friday."

"Except that Friday", he confirmed.

For a moment, I imagined him sitting there, smiling at his phone the way he always seemed to be.

Then he asked his own question.

"What were your thoughts after we exchanged numbers?"

The truth escaped before I could soften it.

"The first thing I thought was, 'Why the hell did I do that?'" I laughed.

He laughed.

And somehow that felt safer than admitting what came next. 

Because the truth was, I hadn't been worried that he would text me. I had been worried that he would.

Those are very different fears.

At the time, I convinced myself it would be nothing.

A few messages. A shared memory of a concert.

Two strangers talking about a band they loved.

Then eventually, silence. People leave all the time.

That's how most stories end. Or fail to begin.

Instead, there we were.

Still talking. Still finding reasons not to say goodbye.

"What did you think when I sent my first message?" he asked.

I told him I had missed the one he sent right after the concert. That I only discovered it the next morning while scrolling backward through our conversation.

"And?", he asked.

I smiled.

"And I thought this would be short-lived."

The reply bubble appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Then finally:

"So how did you fall?"

I laughed so hard I nearly dropped my phone. "Fall? From my chair?"

Even now, I can still picture the smile that must have been on his face.

Because it matched the one on mine.

But after the joke faded, the question remained.

Not the one he asked. The one beneath it.

The one neither of us was brave enough to say directly.

I stared at the screen for a long moment before answering.

"I realized I was going to like you."

There. It wasn't a confession.

Not quite.

But it was closer than anything I had said before.

Then, because honesty suddenly felt easier than caution, I added:

"And I thought you were interesting."

A pause. 

Then:

"Interesting?", he asked.

Another pause.

"And weird.", I confessed.

His reaction was immediate.

"Weird?"

I laughed.

Because he had been.

At the concert, I could see him trying to start conversations.

Trying to find reasons to keep talking.

Trying to pretend he wasn't trying.

There was something awkward and strangely endearing about it.

Like someone who had forgotten how to be nervous and was annoyed to discover he still could be.

When he asked what made him interesting, I found myself struggling to explain.

How do you describe a person who arrives carrying their entire life in both hands?

The mistakes.

The disappointments.

The regrets.

The stories most people carefully hide behind introductions and small talk.

He had told me those things almost immediately.

Not because he trusted me.

Not because he knew me.

But because he seemed tired of pretending they weren't there.

And somehow, that felt rarer than confidence.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, he told me his housemate had noticed him smiling at his phone.

Apparently, it had been happening all day.

I pretended that information meant nothing.

The way we both pretended a lot of things back then.

Then he reminded me of something we had talked about before.

Fridays.

Our Fridays.

The day we would see each other.

Not accidentally.

Not because two seats happened to be beside one another.

Intentionally.

The realization settled quietly between us.

The coming Friday no longer felt hypothetical.

It felt inevitable.

That's when he warned me.

He said he might be a little touchy when we met.

I laughed at the way he phrased it.

Then he explained.

He said it felt as though we'd somehow missed years.

As though there had been too much distance already.

Too much time spent apart.

It was a ridiculous thing to say.

And yet I understood it immediately.

Not because it made sense.

But because feelings rarely do.

Eventually, I had to leave.

The day was waiting.

Responsibilities were waiting.

The version of my life that existed beyond my phone was waiting.

Before I could go, another message appeared.

"Thank you because you came."

I stared at the screen.

Then kept reading.

"It may be at the wrong time."

A pause.

"We can't change that."

Another pause.

"But we can cherish what we have now."

I didn't answer right away.

Because for the first time, it felt like we were no longer talking about a concert.

Or music.

Or messages.

We were talking about us.

And neither of us seemed willing to look away from that anymore.

The next Friday was only a few days away.

And for the first time since we met, I found myself wondering what would happen when there were no screens between us.