by Erica Schreiber

Matilda wasn’t the first girl David met at Gary’s September party in Pasadena. He’d flirted over an IPA with a redheaded VFX assistant, then talked F-1 in the corner with an aspiring actress over shots of tequila.

But Matilda was the only girl he’d remember talking to at Gary’s party.

The first thing he noticed was her smile: a little crooked, a little mischievous in the corners. He took strategic sips of his beer to keep himself from staring at her heart-shaped face too long. Or worse, at her long, slim body wrapped in one of those weird pieces of clothing girls sometimes wore that reminded him of a toddler’s onesie. He didn’t care what she was wearing, or what he was drinking.

He just wanted to make this girl smile again. 

“Matilda Loss,” she introduced herself with a strong handshake. 

“David’s Gain,” he said gravely, earning his first (chagrined) smile.

Matilda was smart and didn’t hide it. “No, I don’t work in entertainment,” she told him when he asked. “I’m a postdoctoral researcher at a bioengineering company.” There was no amount of pressing that would make her explain what that meant. “You’ll forget it as soon as I tell you, trust me,” she said with another of those damn smiles. Even when she wasn’t smiling, it was like her whole face was just… waiting for it. Waiting for him to light her up.

Rather than dissect their disparate jobs, they discussed their worst first dates.

“One time, I took a girl to an arcade bar, and she just followed me around, watching me play, without saying a single word. Refused every drink I offered. After two hours of this, I said I’d send her home in an Uber if she wanted. She asked if I could send her across town instead…so she could make a date with a different guy. It was worth the money just to play some pinball without her lurking over my shoulder,” David told Matilda. She laughed.

“I met this guy on Bumble, he told me he was a ‘total foodie’ and knew all the best places in Echo Park. He made me meet him at Trader Joe’s. It took me fifteen minutes just to park in that tiny fucking lot. He expected me to go grocery shopping with him! And then, after all that talk about Wagyu lace and fugu sushi, he took me to Chipotle for dinner.”

David told her he knew Gary from work. Matilda told him she knew Gary from high school. They agreed Gary threw a good party, and that his ex-girlfriend hadn’t been nearly good enough for him.

David made it clear he was single and looking and was thrilled when Matilda responded in kind. He’d long forgotten about the redhead and the actress. He really only had one question left to ask.

“Can I take you to dinner sometime?” David asked, trying to come across as both serious and chill. He thought he nailed it, but…

Matilda’s gaze went unfocused. For a moment, David thought she might faint and started to reach out to her. Then her eyes snapped to his face with an intensity that sent a jolt straight through him.

“David?” she asked, voice rough, like he’d somehow surprised her.

“Yes, it’s David,” he said, worried. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m— I’m fine,” she said, glancing wildly around the party. For a long moment, she said nothing, just looked around the room with wide eyes before finally returning her attention to his face. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. As David wondered if this was what a seizure looked like, Matilda finally spoke.

“Did you just ask me something?” she asked. “Before you asked if I was okay.”

“Yeah,” David said. He scrutinized her pupils, still worried she wasn’t okay. “I asked if I could take you to dinner sometime.”

“That’s what I thought,” Matilda murmured. There was no hint of a smile, though she devoured his face with her wide cinnamon eyes. They both realized at the same moment that her hands were shaking. She set down her drink, then eyed his briefly, before—

“I’m sorry, but no,” Matilda told him with finality. Then she turned and walked away, leaving David standing there, mouth agape.

The next time David saw Matilda was, ironically, at the Echo Park Trader Joe’s, about six weeks later.

“Matilda?” He approached her nervously. She turned and greeted him with a smile, as if it was completely natural for them to see each other here, or anywhere, or everywhere.

A second later, her smile dropped. “David,” she said flatly. He couldn’t make sense of her tone. “I forgot you used to— that you live in this neighborhood.”

David started to reply, then stopped himself. He knew they hadn’t traded that information at Gary’s party, because he’d been wondering about her ever since. From details small (how did Matilda like her coffee?) to large (what had he said that caused her to turn him down so flatly?). He saw Matilda realize the same thing and stiffen as if exposed.

“Gary must’ve told me,” she said in a rush. Then she added, more measured, “We’ve… been on a few dates. I don’t know if he mentioned that to you.”

Gary hadn’t mentioned any such thing. He hadn’t even seemed any happier at the post-production house where they both worked. Certainly not “dating-a-new-girl-as-fabulous-as-Matilda” happy.

“I thought you guys were just high school friends,” David said, trying to turn it into a question, but his voice wouldn’t comply.

“We are,” Matilda said. “We were. But sometimes… Haven’t you ever realized that something good has been sitting right there in front of you for years, and you just… I don’t know. Missed it?”

David hesitated as he considered agreeing with her for the sake of it. “I think that if someone’s been in your life awhile and you’ve never dated, there’s probably a reason,” he said instead. His words seemed to stop Matilda in her tracks, and he immediately regretted them.

“I’m sorry,” David said. “Sometimes I’m a little too honest.” Matilda nodded like she knew. She didn’t, of course. But she was staring at him again, in that strange way that felt like she was memorizing his face. She looked away, and her eyes caught on his cart. There was nothing of real interest, just some frozen dinners and a couple six-packs of his favorite Josephbrau Hefeweizen. Her eyes quickly flitted back to his face. David felt it, the connection between them, the same one he’d felt at Gary’s party, right up until—

“I have to go,” Matilda said. She wheeled her cart out of the aisle without another word.

“Matilda,” he called after her. He wasn’t even sure why. He found her cart abandoned a couple aisles over and realized she’d walked right out of the Trader Joe’s and back out of his life, for the second time.

David went over every beat of their short conversation in his mind as he paid the overly friendly cashier. He ruminated over her facial expressions as he ran through a blast of late October rain to his Prius. 

His head was still full of Matilda when he backed out of his parking spot without checking his rearview mirror or camera. 

An inhuman shriek brought him back to the moment just in time to slam on his brakes. David’s heart pounded into his ears over the sound of pouring rain, and it took several deep breaths for him to understand what had almost happened. He’d heard the squeal of tires from a Cyber Truck that would’ve flattened him like a wet cardboard box if he hadn’t stopped in time.

David ignored the other driver’s harsh curses as he slowly and carefully peeled out of the wet parking lot, hands shaking.

What horrified him most was in that split second where he’d thought it might all be over, the face that popped into his head was Matilda’s, her mouth open in a stupor of shock, just like at Gary’s party when she’d walked away from him the first time.

It was two months before David saw Matilda again. This time, it was at the post-production house’s Christmas party. He’d asked Gary at least three times if he was bringing anyone to the party. Each time Gary said no. Then David turned around, spiked eggnog in hand, and there she was. 

Matilda hadn’t noticed him yet, so he took his chances and stared. She wore a dark red dress, casual and elegant and emphasizing her lean lines. He had the stupid thought that she was too tall for Gary, especially in heels, and got angry at himself for being so petty. Gary was a good guy. And David had, in fact, noticed that Gary seemed more chipper these days—

It took a long moment for him to realize that at some point Matilda had turned and caught him staring. She looked amused, a frustrated smile in the corner of her mouth. David could do nothing—nothing polite, at least—except trudge over to Matilda and Gary.

“Hey,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

“Hey, David,” Gary said. “This is my girlfriend, Matilda.”

“We’ve met,” David said, even as Matilda extended her hand. As if this were, in fact, the first time they’d crossed paths. David shook her hand anyway, just for an excuse to touch her. Her palm was sweaty. Was she nervous? “At your house party, in September.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Matilda said, and her voice sounded a little high to him. Holy shit, she was nervous. 

“Thought you weren’t bringing anybody tonight, bud,” David couldn’t help mentioning to Gary. 

“I wasn’t, Matilda had a conflict,” Gary said, and David strangely wanted to kill him as Gary gave Matilda—his girlfriend, David reminded himself—a gentle squeeze.

There was nothing gentle about how David himself would like to hold Matilda. He hated how tentative Gary was with her but he knew had no right. Whatever spark he’d felt, Matilda clearly hadn’t felt the same—

And yet, as her eyes met his with a flash of guilt, David couldn’t help but wonder.

“Well, like I said, Merry Christmas. To you both.” David raised his plastic red cup to them and backed away quickly.

David spent the rest of the party getting trashed. It was a terrible idea to drink so much at a work event, but the company had provided the ice sculpture Fireball luge, and the owners were encouraging every employee to stick their mouth on the end and suck down icy burning shots of whiskey. David going back for thirds was barely remarked upon. If anyone had a cold, they’d all be sick with it come Boxing Day.

At some point, David made out with one of the assistant editors. At some point, he karaoked Wham’s “Last Christmas” with his boss’s arm around his shoulder. And at some point, he found himself sitting quietly alone on the balcony, drunkenly contemplating the snowless Southern California landscape at night.

That’s where Matilda found him. David turned around and again… there she was.

“There you are,” he said aloud, surprisingly articulate. But he’d always been able to comport himself well while intoxicated.

“Can I ask a question I have no right to ask you?” Matilda said, and there was no way he’d refuse her. She still hesitated before she spoke. “Have you ever thought about drinking less? Or… maybe stopping altogether?”

David stared at Matilda, taking in those long legs, that perfect dress, the almost-smiling mouth and the serious cinnamon eyes above it. “If I drank less, would you have said yes when I asked you out that night?” David asked her with equal forthrightness.

Matilda took a step forward, staring intently, then stopped herself. She hesitated. And then she answered. “If you didn’t drink, we’d have been dating three months by now.”

David reeled, stunned. Before he could recover, Matilda gave him his Christmas present, one of those smiles he still hadn’t been able to get out of his head. 

“Merry Christmas, David. I hope you have a happy new year.”

The next time David saw Matilda was, incredibly, on Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t unintentional. Gary had let slip that Matilda thought the best coffee in LA came from M Street, in Studio City near where she lived. Gary had let something else slip, too.

“She broke up with me right after New Year’s,” he told David glumly over beers at the sports bar next to their job. “She apologized. Said she should’ve known we were better as friends, after how long we’d been in each other’s lives. It was humiliating.”

Hearing the echo of his own words, David switched to Coke for the rest of the night. 

He hadn’t thought much about what Matilda had said at the Christmas party, except that he’d thought about it a million times. He thought about it over Jello shots at the trashy New Year’s Eve party he and his roommates always threw. He thought about it through his hair-of-the-dog Bloody Mary’s at brunch the next morning. He decided he didn’t drink much more than anyone else in his life. But he still remembered Matilda’s words every time he drank. 

He remembered them less now, though. Once he’d heard Matilda and Gary were no longer, he’d cut back. He tapped out after two drinks anytime he went out now, or even while just chilling at home. His roommates had called him out on it more than once, but he’d just smiled and shrugged. David didn’t really feel any different, but sometimes he wondered if he had a little more energy in the morning. Still, he was twenty-five, and had never suffered a true hangover, at least not one as bad as he’d seen in the movies.

And he’d started going to M Street Coffee once a weekend. It took five visits before he ran into Matilda on a smoggy Saturday morning. He got in line right behind her, in fact, but kept quiet until she’d reached the front.

“Can I get a cold brew, room at the top?” Matilda asked the barista, and David finally had his answer on how she liked her coffee.

“Matilda?” he said, and she swung around.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. Her eyes were wide, as if David had broken some unspoken pact. 

“Gary recommended this place,” David said, and saw a wounded, guilty sadness flash across her face. 

“Hmm,” Matilda said, and turned back to pay.

She moved to the corner, arms crossed, to wait for her drink. After his order, David approached her very cautiously. He worried she might lash out if he spooked her again.

“I’m really sorry,” David said.

“For stalking me?” Matilda asked roughly.

“About you and Gary?” he tried, with a tentative smile. Matilda snorted, not looking at him.

“Look, this place has great coffee,” David said. “Like, really great. But if me being here bothers you, I won’t come back.”

“Really?” Matilda asked, eyebrows raised.

“Okay, well I might ask if we can hammer out some kind of custody agreement,” David said, and watched her try to suppress a smile. “Like, I get Wednesdays and Saturdays, but the rest of the week is yours.”

“What if I want Saturdays?” Matilda asked, still avoiding his gaze like it might burn her. 

“Then I guess I’m stuck with Wednesdays,” he said. 

“What if I want Wednesdays, too?”

“Then I think we’d have to try to settle out of court first, with mediation,” David said thoughtfully. “But I think any mediator worth their salt is going to at least give me Wednesday mornings. You could even end up losing Saturday visitation if you’re not careful—”

David stopped himself because Matilda was laughing. Sure, there was a slight edge of hysteria to it, but it was still warm and real.

They took their coffees outside. They talked about the palm trees that lined the sunny street, the worst times to take the 405, and their favorite celebrity sightings (hers was J.Lo trying to wolf down a messy French dip; his was Larry David scolding a parking attendant). They sat together for a grand total of seven minutes before she told him she had to leave.

“Okay,” he said. “Let me know about the visitation schedule when you have a chance.”

She smiled and rose. “I couldn’t live with myself if I deprived you of great coffee. Come when you like.”

Was it a nice thing to say or a door closed on their only private joke? As Matilda walked away, David blurted out, “I’ve stopped drinking as much.”

Matilda faltered. “That’s good,” she said, then kept on walking.

It wasn’t the last time they ran into each other at M Street. David kept coming at the same time he’d first run into Matilda, and she kept showing up. Not every week, but most. She rarely sat with him for more than five or ten minutes, chitchatting over their cold brews and making dumb jokes at one of the plastic tables.

He always had the feeling that she wanted to stay longer.

But she never did.

One warm Saturday morning in April, David asked Matilda if she was coming to Gary’s birthday drinks that night.

“I’m not sure,” Matilda said. “He invited me, but…”

“You know he’s dating someone new, right?” David asked her. She didn’t. It made her smile.

“Gary’s the nicest guy I know,” she said. “He deserves someone great.”

“You’re great,” David reminded her, and Matilda blushed, the first time he’d seen it.

“I wasn’t great for him,” she said.

“I think you mean he wasn’t great for you,” David said, then cursed his honesty. It didn’t shake Matilda, though.

“That’s why I wasn’t great for Gary,” Matilda said. “Because he was just about perfect, but he still wasn’t… right for me.”

“So… are you… single?” David asked. He couldn’t ask casually. Matilda didn’t answer. Her eyes darted up to his face then quickly away again.

“I might try to stop by tonight,” she said, at long last. She left shortly after with a quiet goodbye, and David couldn’t help the stupid smile that spread across his face.

The next time David saw Matilda was that night. Gary, David, and a couple other editors from work were crowded around the bar at Idle Hour, inside the giant wine barrel-shaped exterior. 

“Isn’t that your ex?” one of the editors asked as Matilda entered. It took everything David had not to turn and stare or wave her over or abandon this group entirely to walk over to her. Instead, he watched Gary’s eyes slide to Shoshana, the girl he’d started dating a few weeks prior.

“We were friends first, and we’re friends still,” Gary answered stubbornly.

“That’s great,” David said, and meant it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Matilda approaching.

“Hey Gary,” she said, a little too brightly. “Happy birthday.”

Shoshanna appeared at Gary’s side, as if conjured. “Omigod, you must be Matilda,” she said. She stared up at Matilda, even perched on an impressive set of heels. “I’ve been so excited to meet you.” Shoshanna certainly sounded excited, especially as she slipped an arm possessively around Gary’s waist. 

David felt his heart stutter as Matilda’s eyes met his with unchecked amusement. The wavelength between them felt pure.

“Hey, Matilda,” David said, unable to hide his grin. “Get you a drink?”

She didn’t look away. “I’ll have what you’re having,” she said, just a hint of challenge in her voice. David leaned over to the bartender and spoke clearly. “I’ll have another Coke, please,” he ordered.

He hadn’t seen Matilda smile that wide since before she turned down his dinner invitation.

It seemed inevitable they’d end up in the corner together. The buzzing in his blood felt better than any drink. They talked about their families. Their favorite vacations. Their first kisses.

“Mandy Hunt,” he told her. “Fifth grade, in a game of truth or dare.”

“That doesn’t count!” Matilda protested.

“Trust me,” David smiled. “It counted. She held my hand while we roller skated afterwards. That’s gotta be, like, the kid equivalent of third base.”

“Fine, fine,” Matilda said with a chuffed laugh. “Mine was seventh grade. Ryan Bishop, in the back of the bus after a track meet. He stuck his tongue in my mouth and I had no idea what to do with it.” They cracked up. Everything felt warm, and then it all felt very still. They were standing quite close, he realized. Out of sight of the rest of the party. 

There was heat in her brown eyes. Heat, and more. Was it longing? Or was he just projecting his own feelings onto that heart-shaped face?

Her eyes flickered to the empty glass cups full only of icy Coke slosh, then back to his face.

“Is it because I said…?” Matilda asked, voice soft.

“It’s absolutely because you said.” David told her, matching her softness. She didn’t smile. If anything, her face grew serious.

“Kiss me,” Matilda said. “Please.”

David didn’t wonder or hesitate. He did what he’d been wanting to do for eight months. He wrapped his arms around Matilda’s long, lean waist, pulled her in close, and put his lips to hers. He’d meant it to be a soft kiss. There was only the silky brush of lips, the wet heat of mouths seeking each other. They were both too hungry to take it slow. Matilda’s arms went around his neck, then tangled in his hair. David would never have expected he’d be the one to pull away first.

“A second chance?” he asked her, voice rough. Matilda’s eyes were wet.

“You have no idea,” she said.

She kissed him again.

It was an absolute luxury to no longer wonder when he’d see Matilda next, because after Gary’s birthday, it was almost every day.

David was nervous the first time they slept together, only a week after their first kiss, but Matilda wasn’t. She was eager, and she was fucking magic in bed— like she’d somehow read the handbook on his body more closely than he had. She had no inhibitions, telling him what she wanted, needed, where to touch, how to touch, how fast, how hard, how soft, how slow…

Gary grew distant with both of them after he found out, which hurt a little. Matilda blamed herself, but David warned her against asking too much of Gary too fast. David knew that if he lost Matilda after having her, he’d need time, space, and maybe some mental bleach.

He met her brother, then her parents. She met his mom, and he was surprised how patient and understanding Matilda was with his mother’s flaky, anxious insecurities and the myriad ways they surfaced.

“Your dad left her out of the blue, right? I’d have plenty of anxiety for the rest of my life about that,” Matilda said with a shrug when he asked.

They fought occasionally. He came home after a couple drinks with his best friend from college, and Matilda went cold and silent on him. David refused to apologize— two beers wouldn’t kill him, or anyone else— but he also never did it again. 

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He just never told Matilda when he had a drink out in the world without her. God knew he never drank when he was with her. He wondered sometimes why that wasn’t enough for her. After all, she drank when she wasn’t with him, whether it was wine night with some girlfriends, or a cousin’s bachelorette party out in Malibu. The double standard grated at him, especially because he couldn’t understand her issue. 

“Your dad has a drinking problem,” she pointed out when he finally mustered the courage to bring it up. That was true. “And… well…” He’d never seen Matilda at such a loss for words. But, after a long moment, she finally managed to eke out the truth. 

“Right before we met… someone I cared about caused an accident. Because he was drinking, and he thought he was okay to drive, but he wasn’t. He died,” she choked out. David just sat there, stunned. “Not just that, he— he killed someone else. I was so angry with him. And myself, for not realizing he had a problem. I thought I’d die of being so angry. And the grief… I could never go through that again.”

“It’s okay,” David told her. He tried to take her in his arms, but Matilda shrugged him off like she couldn’t bear to be touched. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“I dream about it sometimes,” Matilda told him, staring beyond him into space. “I had to identify the body when his mother couldn’t. You have no idea what it’s like, to see a face you know as well as your own, mangled almost beyond recognition.” Her pain made David feel like he couldn’t breathe. She sounded a thousand miles away. “It was right after that, that I…”

She trailed off, and her attention finally snapped back to him. “He had a problem,” Matilda repeated. The fury in her eyes took him aback. “And he wouldn’t fix it. Not even for me.”

“Who was he?” David asked, unnerved. He’d never heard her talk about an ex who meant this much to her, and that was as much a revelation as anything else she’d said.

Matilda hesitated. He could tell she hadn’t meant to share with him so much. Her hands were shaking—her tell, he knew by now. For when she felt too much she couldn’t or wouldn’t share. Like on the night they’d met.

“He’s gone,” Matilda said. “But because of—of him… if you drink… I can’t be with you. I’m sorry. That might feel unfair—”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s fair or not,” David said fiercely. He was relieved when she let him take her cold, trembling hands in his. “I can see how much it means to you. I’d do anything for you, Matilda. I love you.”

It wasn’t how he’d intended to say it for the first time, and certainly not six weeks into their relationship.

David wished he could better understand the swirl of emotions that crossed Matilda’s face as she swallowed. She was afraid, he realized. Of what, he couldn’t be sure. He’d only just learned she still dreamed of someone she’d lost, when his own nightmare would be losing her.

“I love you, too,” she whispered.

It was easy for David to stop drinking altogether.

Until it wasn’t.

Matilda seemed to get more and more nervous about it, about him, as spring turned to overbearing summer. 

In June, he came home from work with a box of his belongings. Matilda was waiting for him on his front stoop. It wasn’t some premonition. He’d texted her after the meeting between the owners, two assistant editors, the night receptionist, and himself— the only editor.

“We’re really sorry,” said the same boss who’d cheered on David’s Fireball shots at the Christmas party. Despite the apology, his tone was flat. “This isn’t personal. It’s not a reflection of your work. We just don’t have the capacity to keep everyone on during this really difficult time.”

And that had been that. David’s job had evaporated during said “difficult time”—a time when every post house he knew was in a hiring freeze. It was also the day after he’d paid two thousand dollars to have his car’s transmission replaced. One week after he’d splurged on a surprise upcoming weekend getaway for him and Matilda in Vegas. He wondered if he could still get his money back on the latter. There’d be no return on his dreams of clubbing with Matilda, her long legs exposed in the short black dress he’d seen hanging in her closet and had been obsessed with getting her to wear ever since.

He wanted Matilda to be a balm for the empty hole in his chest. She clearly wanted it, too.

“I promise this won’t be the last job you ever have,” Matilda told him earnestly. She’d made his favorite dinner, chili and jalapeño cornbread with the corn kernels baked right in. David couldn’t even pretend he was hungry. She had more to say, all of it supportive and warm. After, in bed, she brought out their greatest hits, and David managed to lose himself in her soft skin, her heated whispers, her long legs wrapped around his.

“We can get through this, together,” Matilda murmured in his ear as they fell asleep, arms wrapped around each other. In her arms, he could believe anything.

But the next morning, Matilda left for work, and David stayed home.

A month went by. At Matilda’s suggestion, he took the first week of unemployment just for himself. Caught up on the latest Stephen King. Played some Call of Duty, sometimes with buddies, sometimes with strangers who might have been 12-year-olds. 

Week two, he sent emails to everyone he’d worked with previously, letting them know he was looking. About half of them responded, most of them with their own tales of unemployment. 

Week three, he applied to any editor listing he could find. There weren’t many. He created a LinkedIn profile and received several messages, all about unmissable opportunities to attend for-profit college programs.

Week four, David went back to Call of Duty.

Through it all, Matilda stayed patient and loving and (in his opinion) unnecessarily anxious. 

Week five was the first time he snapped at her, resenting her hovering presence. He apologized immediately, then made it up to her with breakfast for dinner followed by some very dedicated oral sex.

At the beginning of the second month, he stopped apologizing for his surly attitude. Matilda still hovered close, often reminding him that he’d work again. He still applied to jobs every week, but it was like sending a distress signal into deep, dark space. No response ever came. Not an interview request, not a ‘thanks-for-applying-but-we’ve-gone-with-an-investor’s-nephew’ note. Nothing.

David started driving Uber, only at night, and over Matilda’s objections. He politely declined her offer to have him move in with her to save money on rent. If he was avoiding her, he kept that information from her, and himself.

The one thing David never stopped caring about was hiding his drinking from Matilda. He went to OCD-level ends: mouthwash, always, a flask that looked like a container of sunscreen he’d ordered off Amazon, depositing bottles in his neighbor’s recycling bin… Because he wasn’t drinking that much. Certainly not enough that he’d have kept it a secret from someone without Matilda’s tragic history. 

He’d never forget the time she literally came home from work to check on him after hearing him open a can (of Diet Coke!) over the phone.

The third month was September. David woke up late, unshaven and unshowered, on the one-year anniversary of the day he’d first met Matilda in Gary’s apartment. 

Matilda had already left for work, but he found a card, a cold brew, and a croissant on the table. “I’m proud of you for giving up drinking, and not giving up on yourself,” the card said. The croissant and coffee said nothing, of course. Not giving up on himself? David felt rage flood through him. She had it exactly backwards. His career had given up on him, along with his friends. The world had given up on him, and she was a fool not to do the same. Where did this faith in him come from, he wondered? And how did he shake it?

The answer was easy, of course. He could admit he’d never given up drinking. Get her to see the problem was hers, not his. But he knew that would never happen; he would lose Matilda, and he wasn’t depressed enough for that. At least not yet, he thought, as he added just a finger of whiskey to his coffee. 

They had dinner plans that night at his favorite restaurant. Matilda had said she’d pick him up straight after work. She’d even originally planned to take the day off from work to spend it with him, but he’d discouraged that. “It’s not a real anniversary,” he told her, watching her bite her lip. “Thank God. I promise, I’ll have a new job and money to take you out by the time that day rolls around.” He hated that Matilda would be paying for dinner tonight, and he hated even more that it bothered him.

David suddenly knew, right in the middle of losing a Call of Duty match in his underwear, that if he went through with tonight’s dinner plans, he would crush himself, and in so doing, crush Matilda. He’d smash up their relationship, either by confessing he’d lied and kept something important from her, or by keeping it from her one more goddamn time. 

“I’m gonna drive Uber tonight,” David texted Matilda. “Don’t worry about dinner. It’s not important, I promise.”

And then he flipped his phone to Do Not Disturb.

The next time he heard from Matilda was a few hours later. He’d just picked up a passenger, a middle-aged woman named Mary. Her car was in the shop, so she needed him to convey her to her daughter who was suffering through a terrible breakup. Mary was the kind of chatty customer he would’ve loved a few months ago and could barely tolerate now. 

The third time Mary saw Matilda’s name pop up on his phone, David saw her eyes narrow in the rearview mirror.

“Is that your girlfriend?” Mary asked, having ascertained already that David was, in fact, unavailable to her daughter as a rebound.

“Yes, that’s her,” David said.

“Don’t you think you should answer?”

“Oh, that wouldn’t be fair to you—” he protested weakly.

“Don’t you mind me, honey,” Mary said. Matilda’s contact photo lighting up his phone was beautiful, of course, because Matilda was beautiful…

With a sense of doom and resignation, David answered the phone. Already warning her: “Hey, Matilda— Just so you know, you’re on speaker in my car with me and my passenger, Mary.”

For a moment, all he and Mary heard was a dry, gasping sob. David’s heart hammered in his chest.

“Matilda? Are you okay?”

“Please tell me you didn’t have anything to drink today, David,” Matilda begged him. Her voice was so strained he could barely make out the words.

“Of course I didn’t,” David said immediately, his eyes flicking back to Mary’s warily. “You know I don’t drink anymore.”

“I found the fake sunscreen,” Matilda said. “And the vodka in your Stanley cup— I found your whole stash, David. In the back of your closet. You— you never stopped. I should’ve known, I just wanted to believe you, so much…”

Cold horror rushed through him.

“Please pull over,” Matilda begged him. “It’s going to happen again. She’s the same passenger— Mary Graham, forty-seven years old—”

“How does she know that?!” Mary asked David sharply, before redirecting the question. “How do you know my last name, or my age?”

“It was you, David,” Matilda said, like it was the most important thing she’d ever say. “You’re who I lost, a year ago today. Except I didn’t. I don’t know how or why, but I got a redo. That’s why I turned you down at Gary’s party. This is supposed to be our second chance—”

“Matilda, you’re not making any sense,” David snapped. “You went through my shit? That’s not okay!”

“Pull over,” Matilda begged again. “I don’t care if you believe me. If you really love me, pull over.”

“Jesus Christ, Matilda, I’m going 70 on the 405, I can’t pull over. You sound insane.”

“Maybe we should just exit—” Mary started from the backseat. David’s rage and frustration boiled over. With his better judgement shrouded— with yes, fine, some alcohol, but not that much, obviously— David jerked his head around to glare at Mary.

“Not you, too—”

“LOOK OUT!!!” Mary screamed.

It felt like he was moving through water as David whipped his head back. Too slowly. Far too slow to brake or pull the wheel to either side. 

Too late to do anything except feel the crash happen as if in slow motion. Too late to do anything but finally understand.

The crunch of impact between his Prius and the back of the semi-truck stopped ahead of them.

“I’m sorry, but no,” Matilda said, firmly turning down David’s dinner invitation, before turning around and leaving him stunned and confused at Gary’s party.

The horrific, nauseating feeling of unrelenting motion as his body kept going after the car stopped dead.

“If you didn’t drink, we’d have been dating three months by now.”

His ribs crushing into the steering wheel one by one as the front of the car accordioned ever closer.

“He had a problem.” Fury in Matilda’s eyes. “And he wouldn’t fix it. Not even for me.”

Mary’s eyes and mouth wide open in a soundless scream as she hurtled past him towards the windshield. No seatbelt. Nothing to stop her from plunging face-first into the already-shattering glass.

“He died. Not just that, he— he killed someone.” The grief in Matilda’s voice. The accusation, too, that he had missed.

“Mary Graham, forty-seven years old.” The static of the phone beneath her words.

The air bag expanded in front of him, but he could see the back of the semi-truck just beyond it. So close now. Too close. Too fast.

David was about to die.

The last thing he saw was Matilda’s face, eyes wet with tears, the moment after their first kiss.

“A second chance?” he asked her.

“You have no idea,” she said.

David closed his eyes. He’d put her through it all again. His grief was alive in his chest in the moment of his death, Mary’s death, the death of Matilda’s pointless, wasted second chance—

David opened his eyes and startled so hard he sloshed his drink out of the red Solo cup he was suddenly holding. 

He was at a party. 

And in front of him stood Matilda.

A younger, softer Matilda. Was he dead? He must be dead.

“Are you okay?” this impossible version of Matilda asked him, reaching out to touch his arm. Like he needed steadying. He did. 

Her touch was real. He wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t smashed like roadkill into the back of a semi-truck on LA’s worst highway, one year from now, right down to the minute…

Could this really be happening? A heart-wrenched wish, somehow fulfilled? A second, second chance?

He didn’t deserve it. David knew that at once, with fiery certainty. 

“Matilda,” he said, his voice uneven. He looked wildly around the room, confirming that yes, they were in Gary’s apartment, his old one, before he’d moved to Highland Park with Shoshanna. There was the redheaded assistant he’d once hit on, the aspiring actress who’d offered him her number. David couldn’t believe how clearly he remembered every detail of this night. The night he—

“Did I just ask you something?” he asked Matilda. He couldn’t help that it came out unsettlingly abrupt. “Before you asked if I was okay?”

“No,” Matilda said, eyeing him worriedly. Still, she smiled. “But I had a feeling… maybe you were about to?”

It didn’t matter how he’d gotten here or how impossible this moment was. It was real. It was happening. He could ask Matilda out to dinner and she’d say yes. He could invite her over to his place on their next date and sleep with her. He could be the best she’d ever had, because he already knew everything she liked. He could date her for only six weeks before telling her he loved her. He could start looking for a new job now and avoid that depression-filled summer altogether. He could start saving up for their life together.

He could ask her to marry him in a year, and she’d say yes to that, too.

She’d never know she’d once given him up, just for a second chance at a life without the pain he could cause her.

“I’m sorry,” David said. He set down his drink with a shaking hand. “I just realized I have to go.”

“Oh,” Matilda said, clearly disappointed and not a little confused.

“I can’t even tell you how nice it was to meet you,” David said, then rushed out the door before those wide brown eyes could change his mind.

The next time Matilda saw David was a little over a year later. She was in a long line at M Street Coffee, impatient for her favorite cold brew. The bell on the door jangled behind her, she looked over her shoulder automatically, and… there he was.

Her eyes widened in surprise. His didn’t.

“Hi, Matilda,” he said warmly, like they saw each other every day. “Buy you a coffee?”

She nodded, wordless for once. He smiled, and it was the same smile she’d noticed a year ago. A slow, playful grin that caused butterfly summersaults in her stomach.

“David, right?” Matilda blurted, desperately clinging to the pretense she hadn’t asked Gary about him more than once. That smile turned to a knowing smirk.

“It’s David Rangen, actually,” he said, and Matilda burst out laughing.

They ordered, they waited, and then they settled at one of the outdoor plastic patio tables. He listened to her life updates with genuine interest, from her promotion at work (“Well deserved, I’m sure,” he told her) to her adoption of a skinny, good-for-nothing tomcat named Cinnamon (“Like your eyes,” he murmured, making her blush).

She left out Killian, the self-destructive actor she’d met on Hinge. He’d graciously kicked her out of his life after six months, when he realized she wasn’t going to stop trying to “fix him.” She was honestly grateful if a little embarrassed by the whole thing. Dating an actor had been very unlike her. In talking with her therapist, however, she’d realized trying to change the guy she was dating was a little too much like her. Regardless, she had no desire to share anything about Killian with the very good-looking guy in front of her.

“What about you?” Matilda finally demanded. “What have you been up to since… last September?” He hadn’t been at Gary’s birthday or Fourth of July drink-a-thon. She’d looked for him. 

David sipped his coffee a long moment before setting it down.

“The night I met you, I took a good look at my life,” David told her. Matilda couldn’t understand what he meant until he continued. “I was standing there holding my drink,  maybe my sixth or seventh of the night? And it was barely 10 P.M. I realized I’d just met the kind of girl I could picture myself falling for, head over heels. And in that moment, I finally understood I had a problem. The kind of problem that could cause anyone who decided to love me a lot of pain. Someone who cared about me had already tried to warn me, but I refused to listen. Not until it was too late. Almost too late.”

David took a deep breath and met her eyes. “I checked myself into rehab that night.” 

Matilda rocked back in her seat, but David still wasn’t done. “I realized I might not have to give up anything that actually mattered for a second chance. I just had to admit I needed to stop. It would’ve been the hardest decision I ever made, except… I had just met you.”

Matilda realized her mouth had dropped open at some point while he spoke. Those blue eyes she’d had such a hard time getting out of her head were looking at her steadily. Intently. She’d never met anyone this honest before in her life, and it shook her.

She thought maybe she liked being shook.

“I’m sure that sounds insane,” he added when she didn’t respond right away. He ran a nervous hand through the mop of sandy curls she’d wanted to run her own hands through the night they’d met. “Definitely, at a minimum, kinda stalker-ish.”

“Except you haven’t been stalking me,” Matilda pointed out. She couldn’t help a smile. “I mean, if you are… you’re either really good or really bad at it.”

“Touché,” David said with a relieved laugh. “You seemed like a woman of good taste when I met you. Of course I’d find you at the best coffee shop in town.”

Matilda’s smile was unrestrained now. “It is the best, isn’t it? Their cold brew knocks my socks off.”

David didn’t laugh, though he looked like he wanted to. He was staring at her face like he was trying to memorize it. Sure, it was strange, but it felt good, too.

“I’ve been sober for a year now,” David told her seriously. “It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been worth it.”

“Has it?” she asked, taking a deliberate sip, flicking her eyes up towards his. David nodded, caught in her gaze.

“I have a question I’d like to ask you,” he said at last, and Matilda knew what it would be. 

Just like she already knew her answer.