Free Stir by Jessica Fechtor

moments when I could steer the conversation toward talk of our friendship. I tossed out line after line, setting him up to make a move. He didn’t bite.
    Finally, after we’d asked for the check, I told him about the thing Rebecca had said way back when, how he and I would never be more than friends. He closed his eyes for a moment, and I thought his expression half crumpled, but no, I must have imagined it, because then he looked at me straight-on and said, “Yes. That’s right.”
    Okay, then. It was settled. We were just good friends, exactly as I suspected. Nothing would change. Perfect. A win.
    Then why wasn’t I relieved?
    I loved him.
I’d never once considered it, but there it was. I felt insane. I felt sure. I felt devastated that he didn’t feel it, too, but only for a moment, because I was suddenly quite certain that he did. We paid the bill. I mumbled something about needing to pick up some sheet music from his room, and we started walking.
    â€œWho do you think is braver?” I asked, as we approached his apartment. His cheeks flushed, and I knew he understood what I’d been asking all night long. After a pause, he said, “Maybe. With different timing, if there were no Justin,
maybe
there might have been something between us.”
    â€œAnd what if I told you that Justin and I are no longer together?” I spoke carefully. We were sitting on his front stoop by now. He took off his glasses and folded them in his hand. I watched him close his eyes, squeeze the bridge of his nose, and flush redder still. It was a minute or two before he spoke.
    â€œThen I’d say I want to do my life with you,” he said.
    And there it was, the relief I’d been hoping for, just in a different package from the one I’d expected.
    I swallowed. “Me, too.”
    Everything I’ve just said about that night, I don’t believe any of it. I don’t believe in feelings that sweep you away in a flash, or love without doubt, or destiny. We humans have agency. We think, and we decide, and we act. Yet that night—and I know this sounds crazy—it felt as though we had nothing to do with it. Our conversation on the steps, my words, his, they seemed to happen
to
us. It was as though we’d been setting up invisible dominoes for years without realizing it. The slightest tap, and here we were.
    We stumbled around campus wide-eyed, smiling. He walked me home. The next morning, I found an e-mail from him with a single line:
    â€œ1, 2, 3, GO . . .”
    And we went.

Kale and Pomegranate Salad
    My mom still pokes fun at me for a phone call she received one night that week, after Eli and I made a salad together for dinner. “Mom,” I said, “he cut the mushrooms just right.” I had found a guy who shared my salad aesthetic, and while I admit that salad compatibility does not necessarily correlate with romantic compatibility, there is something to be said for standing at the counter together, rinsing, drying, slicing, talking about whatever, and ending up with a big bowl of salad that suits you both to a T.
    Here’s a salad we make as often as we can each fall while pomegranates are in season. The dressing gets its zing from pomegranate molasses, something I first tried at a Seattle restaurant called Sitka and Spruce, where they drizzle the sweet-tart syrup over yogurt and sautéed dates. The dish was genius, and I was hooked. I bought a bottle of pomegranate molasses when I got home—you can find it at Middle Eastern markets and a lot of mainstream grocery stores—and I’ve kept some on hand ever since. I brush it with oil over carrots and beets before roasting, add it by the tablespoon to glasses of sparkling water, spoon it over hot oatmeal, swirl it into yogurt, and whisk it into dressings like the one here.
    I like my dressing on the sharp side, especially in a salad with such strong, sturdy ingredients. If you want to