August 25: Short Excerpt

[kinetic_elaboration]

Excerpt from the thing I’m having a hard time writing:

*

“You know.” He shrugs, pretends to be overly concerned with stepping over the roots beneath his feet. Clearly about to deflect. “How dates will work.”

She’s not sure if it’s a joke until he glances over at her and she catches the expression on his face. It tells her, first, that it was—a slight smile in that look, lopsided—and then what the joke was covering, in the way his gaze meets hers a few seconds too long. What’s the third side of the triangle supposed to do by itself? That’s the real unsaid. What is the line that still connects them, where it does not touch her?

“I don’t think that’s too complicated,” she answers, easy. “You pick out a movie, I judge your taste, we make out a little.” Like before. “And Daria is there.”

“Funny,” Tom huffs.

“I’m a laugh riot. And you’re avoiding my question.”

“You’re avoiding mine. And I asked first.”

Well, he has her there. She lets her gaze jump, an obvious nervous tell, from the faintly fluttering leaves of one tree branch to the next on the trail ahead of them, stretches her legs out to take longer strides on purpose, so that he has to pick up his pace, too.

“I’m just trying to ask how you feel about it,” he tries again.