The moment she says she went to graduate school at Duke I know the date is over. They’re the school that turns the volume down on the music just before the hook.
We agree on an outside bar and then it rains, so we sit inside on crowded covered stools. She can’t breathe outside her caste, and I can’t penetrate it with a pick-axe, so we suffocate.
She finishes her drink and is ready to leave like it’s a time-boxed Zoom meeting. I pick up the tab and decline her offer to pay. The crumminess of the experience hits an hour later and I’m pissed about my poor decision making.
