“I clear my throat, realizing how little I’ve accomplished during this conversation. “So, everything with you is great?” I say in a final attempt to get some scoop. “No problems? No demons in your closet? Nothing weird going on?”“What’s up with you?” he asks, double-dipping a fry. “You were like this on the phone the other day, too.”“Just making conversation.”“Psycho conversation, maybe.”“Speaking of psychos,” I half joke. “Anyone in your life I should know about?”“Just one,” he says, giving me a pointed look.”

“He chuckles. “I won’t pry, but I should probably get some discipline in here somewhere. Or some fatherly advice. What’s your poison?”See? Cool Dad. I stand up, shakin’ my head. “Just tell me how one girl can make me act like a psycho, then I’ll be on my way.”“You know, I’m still tryin’ to figure that out.”

“I've got about ten things to say to you right now. But at least nine of them would make me sound like a psycho.”In spite of the seriousness of the situation, I nearly smiled. “What’s the tenth thing?” I asked his shirtfront. He paused, considering it. “Never mind,” he grumbled. “That one would make me sound like a psycho, too.”

“Was he going to ask me to go with him? Maybe I was getting ahead of myself and he was just making conversation. Oh, why was talking to a boy so fraught with complication?”

“I would definitely want the one with the bed,' I say and then realize how that sounds. I wonder if I will ever be able to flirt intentionally, as opposed to just accidently.'Really?' he says, a little too innocently.I can do this— I can say something flirtatious and mean to. 'Or maybe not. You were always horrible at sharing your things,' I tease, but then realize that was just an insult said with an eyebrow wiggle.James leans in close enough that our arms touch and he smiles, slow and deliberate. 'I've gotten better.'I think all of my internal organs just evaporated. 'Why do you have a bed if you don't sleep?' I blurt. 'It looks new.''Yeah, that's not where I thought this conversation was going at all,' he says before settling back against the wall.”

“Or maybe this wasn't a human-faerie translation problem at all. Maybe this was a male-female translation problem. I read an article once that said that when women have a conversation, they're communicating on five levels. They follow the conversation that they're actually having, the conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered only in subtext, and finally the other person's body language. That is, on many levels, astounding to me. I mean, that's like having a freaking superpower. When I, and most other people with a Y chromosome, have a conversation, we're having a conversation. Singular. We're paying attention to what is being said, considerating that, and replying to it. All these other conversations that have apparently been going on for the last several thousand years? I didn't even know tht they existed until I read that stupid article, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. I felt somewhat skeptical about the article's grounding. There were probably a lot of women who didn't communicate on multiple wavelenghts at once. There were probably men who could handle that many just fine. I just wasn't one of them. So, ladies, if you ever have some conversation with your boyfriend or husband or brother or male friend, and you are telling him something perfectly obvious, and he comes away from it utterly clueless? I know it's tempting to think to yourself, "The man can't possibly be that stupid!" But yes. Yes he can.”