Your first date post-Gabriel was not exactly glamorous. Except that it wasn’t exactly post-Gabriel, per se, and it wasn’t exactly a date, either. That is to say, you were still very much engaged to Gabriel; you were still living in his parents’ trailer, you got dropped off at work in his BMW that morning. But that is also to say, you were just seeing a guy during your lunch break. Catching up with an old friend. He had wanted to get you in his car, but even though you had crossed a million lines already, it made some part of you feel responsible to say Nah, let’s just chill outside. And the two of you didn’t eat, so that further confirmed it was not a date. A not-lunch date. You were always doing that – trying to reframe the narrative, search for that thread of deniability. A technicality you could run with.

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He gave you an awkward side hug, and you sat across from him at one of the little round metal tables next to the fountain, just across from Panera Bread. Part of you wondered how you got here, but you could trace it back to your first interaction a week or so ago. You had messaged him hey and nothing else. You expected a response like, hey, or, ?, or, what’s up? But instead he said, Are you okay? And you couldn’t really even remember the last time anyone had asked you if you were okay. Now you were here.

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Despite being a not-date, there are some things about it that still feel distinctly date-like. You use the catching up as an opportunity to impress him – you tell him how you finished your bachelors degree a year early, how you’re trying to go back to school in the fall. How you’re at the coffee shop for now, but at least you have a plan. He tells you about things at the warehouse, tells you about the awards he’s gotten, how he’s the youngest driver there. How he’s working his way up the ranks. He offhandedly mentions that he voted for Trump because of something to do with overtime pay. You shut that conversation down quickly. He is ruining the whole idea of this by bringing it to politics.

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You ask to see pictures of his son, and then you ask a few questions about his son’s mother. They don’t have a custody agreement in place, you know they just do handoffs. You’re trying to gauge how close they still are. He says, I don’t want to talk about my ex, and you counter with, but she’s not really just an ex, is she? She’s your son’s mom. And he says so? And you move on but you’re taking note of it all. You think it says a lot about a man – the way he talks about the mother of his child. But it probably also says a lot about a woman when she is out on a not-date with her not-fiancé. You ask about how it ended, and he gives you a brief summary. She didn’t respect me anymore. And she was like, basically cheating on me. It’s like looking at a funhouse mirror of your own failing relationship, complete with disrespect, infidelity, and an unhealthy reliance on substances. He shifts the conversation away from his son’s mother and towards his thoughts on said substances. Look, I might drive drunk sometimes, he says, but at least I would never drive high. I don’t know how people do that. He also adds, I think I drive better when I’m drunk, and then, after a few questioning looks from passersby, Shit, I should probably keep my voice down.

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You snort a little when you laugh at that. You’re not laughing because it’s funny, you’re laughing because if you switch the places of “high” and “drunk,” you’ve basically heard this statement directly from Gabriel’s mouth already. Is this really the type of guy you’re attracted to? While you are on the topic of vices, he casually mentions that he knows your plug. I know Ray. He says. Ray as in Raymond? You say, with some slight hint of disbelief, and he says Yea. And you say, Raymond, as in, the plug? And he says Yea, that’s my boy, and he says “my boy” in a funny way that will stick in your brain long after you two have stopped talking. You tell him a story about how you and Gabe saved up $40 in quarters in a big Ziplock bag and walked it down the hill towards the elementary school to meet Ray. He trades you a story about a girl trying to buy from Ray in quarters too, but she was several dollars short, and he took it anyway because he was just a nice guy like that. You didn’t really picture Ray as a nice guy, or as the close friend of the man sitting across from you now. You only ever pictured him as that guy you messaged on snapchat who sold questionable carts and, once, French bulldog puppies. Ray isn’t really your plug, though. Ray is Gabe’s plug, and everything in your life feels like it is that – an extension of something that belongs to someone else.