Death May Disagree

Chapter 15

I conduct myself nervously during dinner at the fancy Italian restaurant Milo picked to be our first date. We order a small four-cheese pizza that takes thirty minutes to make because according to our waiter, all items on the menu are made to perfection. The atmosphere here differs from the atmosphere in the car, where it was just Milo and me in an all too familiar position. Sitting across each other, with a lit candle spilling wax out of a wine bottle, surrounded by other date night patrons, I remember how nervous I was when I first rode in a car with Milo. I'm going to need a few more dates to fully get used to this.

"Hold still," says Milo, withdrawing his hand from mine and taking his phone out of his pocket.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

Milo holds his phone close to his face, tilting it at an angle. "The lighting is perfect and I want you to see how beautiful you are," he says, indicating that the phone is set for taking photos.

"Now? Here?"

"Of course. We'll also take one together when the waiter comes with our food."

I get over my initial self-consciousness and smile a practiced smile, but it's only after Milo shows me the photo that my shoulders relax. He was right. The lighting is perfect and, with the extra time I took to get date-ready, I actually do look beautiful.

"Can I take one of you?" I ask Milo.

"Go for it."

Throughout dinner, Milo doesn't mention the kiss we shared at the hotel like I worried he would. If it weren't for Dustin and Dominique, I know I would have done something more, but I don't know if I would have regretted moving so quickly afterwards. In the heat of the moment, anything we would have done would have seemed natural, a perfectly normal series of events shared between two physically attracted people. But I didn't want to be okay with anything that seemed natural. After learning that Milo and Denise have done intimate things that were done solely because they were the only things you could do in highschool, I wanted to do things that are natural, the kind that's built up from more than just urges.

I choose to see Milo's silence on the matter as a form of respect. I didn't explicitly tell him I'm a virgin, the same way he hasn't explicitly told me he wasn't one, but somehow I think he knows. At the gelato shop we go to after dinner, Milo asks me if I want to watch a movie at his apartment, which both terrifies and excites me. It's a simple offer, but one that I know many have used for purposes other than movie-watching.

"Can I pick the movie?" I ask, my chocolate scoop having only gotten a few licks.

"Certainly. What did you have in mind?"

I go through a list of thrillers and scary movies in my head. I'm not a big fan of those genres, but I want to take advantage of having someone to watch them with instead of watching them by myself. Truthfully, I'd rather watch a romcom, but I'm not sure if Milo would be interested in them. If we're going to his apartment to watch a movie, and not "watch a movie," then it's going to have to be a movie that'll keep his eyes glued to the screen.

"How about a scary movie?" I ask.

Milo's eyes light up. "I've got three in mind."

Milo lets me choose between The Others, The Orphanage, or 1408, all of which, because I haven't seen, Milo and I agree to watch over the course of spring break. I settle on The Others, the earliest movie of the bunch. Milo says it's the least scariest, but if that's true, then I don't know if I can watch the rest. I jumped every few minutes and hated every scene that took place at night because the only light Nicole Kidman would allow were from candles, so any effort one put into lighting a room was as useless as not having lit a candle at all. Milo laughed at my every scream, and in a way, I was happy that my fear added to his movie experience.