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Eddie’s been pressuring Chrissy to “get back out there” for weeks now. It’s been over a year since she finally got away from Jason for good. After years of breaking up with him, only to take him back at the slightest glimpse of character development, she finally managed to gain some self-respect and fully cut him off. Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, phone number, hell even LinkedIn, he’s blocked on everything. Eddie gave her a soft place to land letting her move into Jeff’s old room since Jeff had conveniently just moved in with his long term partner. He even helped her throw a miniature bonfire to burn all the pictures with Jason and get rid of all the shit he’d had given her over the years. It helped things feel a bit more final when Jason would always swoop in with some flaky apology to try and convince her of how he’s changed. He never changes, and she always used to fall for it, his promises of a brighter future and their perfect love story.
A year is the longest she’s been single since before she started dating Jason. He was her first boyfriend all the way back in 8th grade and they were never broken up for long enough for her to date anyone else. 10 years of her life and he’s all she has to show for it.
So maybe Eddie’s right and it is about time she gets back out there and sees what the world has to offer. But it’s a bit terrifying… stepping out into the wide unknown, putting herself in some vulnerable position where she has to let someone get to know her. She doesn’t even know herself. Almost half her lifetime, and everything that made Chrissy Chrissy has been chipped away as Jason molded her into exactly what he wanted her to be. Perky and preppy and bubbly and docile and quiet.
She’s still trying to figure out who she is when she’s allowed to just… be. The thought of letting someone else do that to her, or even just be put in a position where they would have the opportunity to do that to her, to say it makes her hesitant to agree would be an understatement.
Has she vocalized any of those fears to Eddie? Nope. Because as great as he’s been – helping her get all of her things from Jason’s place when she ended things, holding her when the crushing weight of being alone fought against the lightness of her new found freedom, and all the ways in which he’s helped her find out who she is without a puppeteer pulling her strings – he’s still Eddie. And she’s not sure he’d really get it.
Eddie’s never been scared to show the world who he is. He’s frighteningly self assured, he’s known who he is since before he had the words for it. Chrissy admires that about him, how he’s never questioned himself the way she does, how he never changes who he is to appease other people, all the ways he just lets himself exist without worrying about the consequences. And yes, there have been consequences at times, but nothing ever so catastrophic that he hasn’t been able to recover quickly.
So she’s not really sure he’d totally understand her hesitance. But at the same time, she hasn’t told him any of this. So she can’t really fault him for his insistence. Frankly, he won't shut up about it.
For weeks he’s been pestering her about letting him set up a blind date for her with some guy named Rob. He works with Eddie’s “not-a-crush,” Steve, from the Physical Therapy and Chiropractic clinic that Eddie’s been going to since an ill-advised stage dive two years back. He claims he hasn’t fully recovered but he probably could have stopped going months ago. He’s all heart-eyes over Steve, one of the physical therapists, and each visit to the Chiropractor side elicits enough cracking for a viral ASMR video, so as long as insurance covers it, he’s going to keep going.
And after every visit, he mentions Rob again, singing his praises and begging Chrissy to agree. She’s been resistant, never properly communicating why but saying “no” regardless, but it’s getting unbearable. And, she hates to admit it because he gets such a big head when he’s right, he does have a point.
It’s been a year. She’s getting hornier by the day. She’s got enough self-respect that she’s confident she could leave before it got to Jason levels of insanity. She’s not 14 anymore. Maybe, and that’s a big maybe, it is time for her to give dating another chance.
All those reasons, Eddie’s insistence, and a bit of vodka apple juice all mix together one night to create the perfect cocktail of “sure, Eddie, go ahead and set it up.” Perhaps a drunken and reluctant “sure” shouldn’t be taken as a binding agreement. But Eddie was so excited that she finally agreed and what harm can one date really do?
“Eddie,” Chrissy whines about a week later, banging on Eddie’s door for the fourth time. “Eddie, wake up! You have to help me! It’s your responsibility as the person who coerced me into going on this dumb date in the first place!”
The door finally swings open to reveal a grumpy looking Eddie glaring at her with smeared eyeliner that he obviously didn’t wash off from the night before. He and the boys had a gig. Clearly it was a fun night since Eddie slept until well into the afternoon rather than waking at his usual 12:30-ish for a heaping bowl of cereal.
“I didn’t coerce you,” he grumbles, rubbing sleep from his eyes and further smearing the left over eyeliner.
“Well, I was drunk when I agreed so I’m pretty sure that counts as coercion.” Chrissy drags him from his room to the kitchen and pushes him to sit where she’s already prepared a mixing bowl full of fruity pebbles and a coffee with mostly milk and sugar and barely any coffee.
Chrissy drinks her coffee black because she is not a heathen.
“Now eat up and wake up. If I’m going on this date I at least want to look good. And you have to tell me about Rob. I… honestly never really listened when you mentioned him before because I was always planning on saying ‘no.’”
Eddie huffs a laugh into his coffee making it bubble out of the mug and spill on the table.
Eventually, Eddie finishes his “meal” and lets Chrissy drag him into her room so she can rifle through all of her clothes. It’s been a long time since she’s gotten ready for a date. By the time they graduated high school, she and Jason all but stopped going on actual dates. They’d go out with friends and sit next to each other in the movie theater if they went as a group. Sometimes they’d even go out with another couple and call it a double date, but they rarely went out, just the two of them.
After a while, she rarely went out at all, too scared to earn Jason’s ire by going to the wrong place or spending time with the wrong person.
It’s near impossible for her to remember the last time she had to worry about what to wear like this. She must have been a freshman or a sophomore. She’s gone out with Eddie in the past and put together outfits for themed nights, she’s dressed to fit in at a Corroded Coffin gig, and on occasion she’s built an outfit just for the sake of looking hot (a suggestion by Eddie to help her build back her confidence), but there’s something fundamentally different about getting ready for a date and not just a night out or a special event.
She supposes this could count as a special event. There doesn’t seem much of a point in getting her hopes up. Regardless, she pulls out her favorite skirt, a sweater, and a couple of other options. She’s supposed to be meeting Rob at one of those pottery painting places where you have to pick it up a week later. There’s a chance of getting paints on her clothes so she should wear something she’s willing to sacrifice just in case. Something comfortable is an order but she wants to look cute too. Desirable or something. Not homely or, like, frumpy? She just wants to look good.
Eddie talks about Rob – who’s full name is Robin apparently – while Chrissy rummages through her closet and dresser. He throws in opinions on different articles of clothing here and there while raves on about how compassionate Robin is and how he cares so much about people and animals. He tells a story about Robin and Steve helping Steve’s sorta-brother find his lost cat and how they saved a rabid dog on that adventure despite Robin’s extreme phobia of rabies.
Robin is a physical therapist that specializes in orthopedics. Apparently he helped Eddie with some pre-stage-dive conditions that he neglected to mention to Chrissy before this exact moment – Chrissy pauses doing her make-up to throw an eyeshadow brush at his head and reprimand him for forgetting such an important detail. (Steve specializes in working with jocks- athletes,” Eddie adds).
Dorky, funny, awkward, endearing, loyal, and a bit clumsy. Robin sounds like such a catch.
“Speaking of dorky, Robin will be the only person in the pottery painting studio who would dare wear purple suspenders, or suspenders at all actually, so you’ll definitely know who you’re looking for.”
“What does he know about me?” Chrissy asks, feigning disinterest as she fixes her hair for the fourth time.
“Only that you’re perfect,” Eddie responds.
Chrissy drops her hands from her hair letting them fall in her lap so she can pinch the tips of her fingers. Her head slumps and she swallows thickly.
Perfect is a lot to live up to.
“I’m serious, Eds. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to act. This is my first date in, like, a decade or something and I have no clue what I’m doing. What if I make a fool of myself? What if I’m too preppy or I’m wearing too much make-up? Maybe I’m not wearing enough. What if I say the wrong thing and Robin tells Steve and you can never return or talk to the man of your dreams again? What if-”
“Take a breath, babes.”
Chrissy does. She’s freaking out, but why wouldn’t she be?
“The only thing you need to do is be yourself and it will all work out how it’s supposed to. Whether it’s the start of the romance of your life or you never see each other again. It’ll all be okay. Yeah?”
“If you say so,” Chrissy says, avoiding eye contact and slumping in on herself just a bit.
Eddie steps towards her, serious in a way that demands her full attention.
“Tits up, Chrissy Cunningham,” Eddie says, hands resting gently on Chrissy’s shoulders, face soft and genuine. “It’s the first night of the rest of your life.”
“It’s just a date,” Chrissy dismisses, turning to the mirror and adjusting her bra to push her boobs together and encourage a little more cleavage. Tits up and all.
Eddie flops back on her bed, bouncing a little and crumpling her comforter and messing up her pillows. She just made that. She’ll need to remake it before she leaves. She’d ask him to fix his mess but he wouldn’t do it right. She’s pretty sure it’s not intentional and he just sucks at cleaning. His bed is never made so it’s hard to hold that against him.
“You need a better attitude, Chris. This could be your soulmate.”
“Yeah?” Chrissy rolls her eyes and walks over to her desk that she’s turned into a vanity. “And what are the chances of my first date since Jason being my soulmate?”
Soulmates probably aren’t real. She had been so certain about Jason for a time. A long time, really. Thought they were perfect for each other and destined to be and all that. It was romantic, and everyone around them seemed to agree. They just made sense. To everyone but Eddie at least.
A few years back Jason was briefly between jobs and, though reluctant, he let Chrissy get a part time position at the local craft store to help with bills. That’s where she met Eddie. Every few days he’d saunter in with some new idea for a project. Without much prompting at all he’d launch into a very engaging and dramatic retelling of how he came up with the idea. Sometimes it was something as simple as getting new paints for his Dungeons and Dragons minis, a hobby she learned much about from him. She’s played a few one shots at this point but it’s not really for her, she’d rather watch than participate. Sometimes he’d get an itch for some extravagant project that required a trip to the hardware store and, after they’d known each other for a few weeks, he'd invited her along only for her to have to politely decline.
She wasn’t working there for long before Eddie started coming by just to hang out and chat with her. Jason wasn’t a fan of it. Kept insisting that Eddie was trying to seduce her and steal her away from him. ‘Corrupt’ her, he’d insisted. And when Eddie started talking about boys openly, not caring if she told Jason, Jason said some really nasty stuff about Eddie.
Chrissy had never met anyone gay before Eddie, but he didn’t seem evil or deceptive. He just seemed like a nerd.
The first time Chrissy broke up with Jason, he’d blamed Eddie. And maybe he was right to an extent; Eddie had encouraged her to remove the rose colored glasses, but he wasn’t trying to steal Chrissy or turn her to sin or something, he was just concerned that Jason was a controlling and abusive prick. He was right, of course. It just took a while for Chrissy to see it.
If soulmates are real, which she’s pretty sure they aren’t, hers is probably Eddie. It’s not romantic, but if there was one person perfectly suited for her, she thinks it’d be him.
“Well, you never know,” Eddie insists.
It doesn’t take much longer for her to finish getting ready, throwing on a few accessories and double checking her hair and makeup.
“You look perfect as always, Chris,” Eddie insists. “You’re gonna go and have an amazing time and Robin is going to fall in love at first sight, and you can mention me in your wedding vows.”
Chrissy rolls her eyes and bids him farewell.
Chrissy parks her car a few rows away from the entrance. The little pottery painting place is in a shopping center nestled between a nail salon and a flower shop. It’s cute, quaint, a perfect place for a first date where you want to talk and get to know someone but don’t want to have to make eye contact.
There’s always room in the apartment for more mugs so she’s already decided that’s what she’ll paint but she’s not sure what she’ll paint on it or what colors and she’s spent far too long second guessing herself, wondering if yellow actually is her favorite color and or if Robin will judge her based on the glaze she chooses or the shape of the mug.
It seems ridiculous that someone would but, well, Jason would.
She picks at her nails and tangles her fingers in her lap, twisting and pulling until every possible joint in her hands has popped and at least 3 nails have been fully picked of all their nail polish.
Breathe in. 1. 2. 3. 4. Breathe out. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Again. 1. 2. 3. 4. Out. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
It takes a couple minutes but she comes back to herself and fishes a bottle of nail polish from her center console. Always be prepared and all that. She’s early, luckily, so she has plenty of time to repaint and let her nails dry.
It’s a soothing practice and blowing on the nails to help them dry serves to further control her breathing and prevent her from spiraling yet again.
A bell attached to the door jingles as Chrissy walks in. Upon looking around, there’s no one wearing purple suspenders, and she tries not to worry herself about whether or not Robin is going to show up. It’s entirely possible Eddie said something extremely embarrassing and Robin will have decided a date with Chrissy wasn’t worth it .
Deciding not to let herself overthink, Chrissy takes a look around. One wall is covered in shelves all full of different white ceramics. Bowls, plates, mugs of all different shapes and textures. On the other side, there’s another set of shelves with glazes and sample tiles displaying how the glaze shows up. This is the first time she’s ever been to a place like this and she’s excited to flex her creative muscles.
There’s a couple off to one side sharing a large jar, likely to be used for cookies. They’re painting each other’s palms and stamping their hand prints on the side. It’s cute, and a small, hopeful, part of Chrissy imagines a future where she’s doing that with someone. There’s a small family off to one side as well. The adults are painting dishware as the two children paint little figurines.
Chrissy picks an empty table halfway between the check-out and the entrance where she can watch the door but that doesn’t make her look too eager.
Eddie texts her not long after she sits down. While Chrissy arrived early, Robin is running late. At least there’s confirmation of some kind that she’s probably not being stood up. No wonder Eddie likes her. She shoots out a reply jabbing at Eddie’s aversion to punctuality.
She changes her sitting position about 12 times trying to look casual but not too casual. She’s startled out of her strange dance by a kid, not a kid really but younger than her by enough that she can say that, in a stained apron and a name tag walking up to her.
“Hi?” Chrissy greets, though it sounds more like a question.
“Hi, welcome in! My name’s Will.” He gestures at his name tag with “Will. He/Him” written in puffy paint on his ceramic name tag. “Do you know how everything works or would you like me to give you the rundown?”
“Nice to meet you.” Chrissy offers a shaky smile, trying to swallow her embarrassment at being snuck up on. “I’m uh- I’m waiting for someone but if we need help I’ll definitely ask later.”
“Sounds good. I’ll be behind the check-out most likely but if you can’t find me you can find El in the back room. There’s more tables and also more items back there. You’re welcome to look around, if you’d like.”
“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”
It’s not long after Will smiles and wanders off back behind the register that the door opens with a jingle of the bell. Chrissy’s head perks up hoping to see purple suspenders but instead she sees someone in a maroon jacket with enamel pins on the lapel. They catch her off guard, a bit, the way they almost tumble in but somehow make it look intentional and graceful. They have a bright face and a distinct style and they’re a bit awkward and Chrissy can’t help but think “cute” with a little laugh as they right themself and take an exaggerated breath.
She catches herself and goes back to her waiting only for this person to approach her and nervously ask if she’s Chrissy.
“Yes?” She answers like it’s a question, something that she seems to be doing a lot of today. It’s only then that she notices the purple suspenders peeking out from under this person’s oversized corduroy jacket.
She’s frozen for a bit, eye growing wider and wider, while, presumably Robin, rambles and apologizes for being late explaining that there was a turtle crossing the road on the way here.
“- and it was not a fan of me trying to pick it up so I just had to kinda, like, urge it across, and- Damn your eyes sparkle. They’re so blue! How do you do that?”
“I thought you were a boy,” Chrissy finally says, breaking through the ramblings. “Or, maybe you are, I didn’t mean to assume. Are- are you… a boy?”
It feels foolish to ask but she also should not have assumed this person is a girl just based on appearance. That’s something she’s been working on since meeting Eddie. He’s taught her a lot about the queer community and she likes to think she’s becoming a good ally.
“Only sometimes,” Robin, because this is definitely Robin isn’t it, replies with a hesitant chuckle and a hand reaching up to scratch the nape of their neck. “Usually She/They pronouns work though.”
“Oh,” comes Chrissy’s extremely eloquent response. “Sorry.”
Minutes or hours but probably actually only a few seconds pass with palpable awkwardness and uncomfortable eye contact. Robin’s mouth is stretched into a nervous smile and kinda rocking from the balls of her feet to her heels. Finally they break the silence. “And your pronouns are?”
“Oh!” Chrissy startles. “Just- Just she/her is fine. Thank you. Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Robin asks, and it feels a little like a trap, the way they tilt their head and blink at Chrissy. It feels like there must be a right and wrong answer and Chrissy knows she’s going to say the wrong thing. She doesn’t know what to say really so she decides on the truth.
“I… do not… know…” Chrissy admits. “I’m awkward. This is awkward. I- I thought Eddie was setting me up on a date with a, well… with a boy.”
“For someone who talks so much, Eddie’s not always the best communicator is he?” Robin laughs, it sounds a bit like the way actresses laugh in movies when they find something amusing or endearing but it doesn’t seem fake the way it probably should. “I am, well, not exactly a boy. Sorry to disappoint.”
She looks embarrassed, as if she’s done anything to be embarrassed of. They haven’t, of course. Chrissy’s the one who should be embarrassed. She’s the one who made quite a fool of herself.
“No, he’s really not.”
Chrissy had never really considered dating anything but guys. Growing up in a family and environment like hers, being straight was a given. Chrissy always knew it was her fate to marry a nice guy and get to popping out babies hoping one of them would be the second coming of Christ or something. Submission to her husband and submission to the Church and if she was feeling really frisky maybe she could have half a glass of wine at Bible study on Wednesdays while gossiping with other women trapped in loveless marriages with too many kids to count.
She’d had the passing thought, caught herself staring a little too long at long legs and skirts that were certainly not church appropriate but she never let herself linger. It was… sinful. Temptation. A test. She simply prayed the impure thoughts away and it worked well enough.
A few months ago Eddie showed Chrissy the 1999 movie But I’m a Cheerleader. She saw a bit of herself in Megan. The way she always felt like she had to force herself to kiss Jason, how “staying pure” with him was never really an issue for her. She mentioned that to Eddie and maybe he just got the wrong idea, interpreted her commentary as a “coming out” of sorts.
But she could have sworn Eddie said Rob was a guy, or at least used “he” when referring to them.
“I’m really sorry if you were looking forward to a date tonight,” Chrissy says, somber and guilty. It feels like her fault, like she should have known better, listened more, asked a few more questions.
Robin gestures to the chair across the table and Chrissy realizes Robin has been standing this entire time. She nods frantically and asks Robin to please take a seat which they do, pulling out the chair and sliding in with a small huff.
“Well it doesn’t have to be a date if you don’t want it to be,” Robin offers, an awkward olive branch. “It can just be two people with extremely annoying best friends getting to know each other. We can even plot against them if you want.”
Chrissy huffs a small laugh and suppresses a smile. “Sounds like a plan.”
While Chrissy has certainly been reluctant to start dating again, she could definitely use some new friends. Eddie’s great, but all her other friends were all Jason’s friends and none of them could understand why she would break up with such a ‘great, God fearing man.’ All that to say she’s not exactly disappointed by this strange turn of events. Robin seems nice and Chrissy’s eager to see where the evening goes.
“So, do you know how this place works?” Chrissy asks.
Robin does, as a matter of fact. They’re a regular, apparently, coming in a few times a month with Steve, who is not only Robin’s coworker as Chrissy had thought, but also her best friend and roommate. Robin explains how the place works while listing off the various dishes and vases and figurines she and Steve have made over the years. They’ve amassed quite a collection and Chrissy is eager to agree when Robin says, “I’ll have to show you sometime.”
It’s a great place for a first date, if this was a date. An activity to focus on while still allowing them to talk to each other.
Robin picks two items, a bowl with a wavy rim and a small, simple plate. Chrissy finds a gnome shaped mug that she thinks Eddie will like. She’s yet to decide if she’s going to give it to him or keep it for herself to make him jealous as consequences for his poor communication skills.
They pick glazes next, Chrissy being extremely intentional with her color choices and Robin grabbing whatever colors call to them first. Robin even grabs a few interesting glazes that look like a kaleidoscope of color explosion.
While Chrissy uses a small paper plate as a pallet for her glazes, Robin uses the small, round plate she grabbed from the wall. She has a whole set of them at home apparently, small and large plates with random splotches of color from previous visits. She claims it means there’s less wasted glaze. And that makes sense but Chrissy has the feeling she just wants an excuse to bring home more stuff.
They talk while they paint, Robin layering their glazes as quickly as they talk and Chrissy taking her time and doing her best to stay inside the lines. The gnome’s hat is red, its vest is blue, and its boots are brown.
Robin names the gnome Gnikolai, “with a silent ‘G’ of course.”
It's an amazing day, and each second that passes, Chrissy finds herself wondering why she was so against it being a date.
Robin gets excited about some foreign film she watched recently that is a perfect adaptation of some book Chrissy’s never heard of but has swiftly moved to the top of her ‘to read’ list. It makes her want to reach across the table and touch Robin’s wrist. She doesn’t.
Robin accidentally pours red on their pallet plate when they meant to put purple. Chrissy wants to spread the glaze to make a little heart on Robin’s pallet plate. She doesn’t.
Robin moves when she’s excited and accidentally kicks the table leg making the water cup almost tip over. Chrissy wants to lightly kick Robin’s shin and bump their knees together. She doesn’t.
But she wants to. She really, really wants to. And she’s a little bit peeved that Eddie seems to have figured her out before she had the chance to do it on her own.
She’s still got a lot to figure out, but as they check out and Robin offers to pay, Chrissy knows she wants to see Robin again.
The walk to her car looks long and arduous so Chrissy just stands a few feet away from the door for a moment. Robin lingers too, looking like they want to say something but not quite getting it out. It’s the first time they’ve been quiet the whole day.
“I had a good time,” Chrissy offers, breaking the silence.
Robin smiles, a little melancholy but genuine nonetheless. “Me too.”
“What if…” Chrissy takes a breath, bites her bottom lip in a nervous habit she picked up years ago, and takes another breath. “What if I wanted this to have- to have been a date… would that be okay?”
Robin’s eyes bug out in a way that shouldn’t be entirely possible and makes Chrissy worry they might pop directly out of Robin’s skull. Nevertheless, they sparkle with something akin to hope. “More than,” they say, nodding like an eager bobble head.
God, Chrissy wants to hold their head in place, one hand on each cheek and just- just…
“And… what if we- what if I wanted you to kiss me? Would that be okay?”
If Robin were to nod any more frantically, Chrissy is concerned her head might fall off. “More than.”
“Robin…” Chrissy takes a step forward, confident but cautious.
“Yeah?” Robin’s eyes flick from Chrissy’s eyes to her lips and up again, wide and waiting.
“Kiss me.” It’s not begging or pleading, except that maybe it is a little bit. Maybe kissing Robin is everything Chrissy has ever needed.
Robin answers by doing just that, surging forward and slamming her lips against Chrissy’s. Despite the urgent start, the kiss softens quickly, becoming something gentle and slow. It doesn’t last long but it’s long enough for Chrissy to feel the urge to pop one of her legs up like Mia from the Princess Diaries, it’s long enough to leave her wanting more, it’s long enough to be the best kiss Chrissy’s ever had, and long enough to know that Eddie is going to be absolutely insufferable when Chrissy tells him about her date.
And it was a date. Definitely a date.