Chocolate At The End

“You know, I never really liked chocolate cake.”

She sits across from me with her hands in her lap. Usually, they’re wrapped around her steaming cup of coffee as she savors the warmth. Her hands are always cold.

On our first date, we went swimming. I know, it doesn’t sound like a traditional first date, but we hiked out to a local spot I always loved heading to. It was endearing, the way she huffed and puffed up the hill and then turned pale when I hopped down the embankment and held out a hand to guide her.

“Down there? You never mentioned any kind of climbing…” She looked genuinely afraid but stepped towards me anyways. Me, a stranger she met on a dating app, who’d taken her into a river in the middle of the woods. She trusted me. Some may call her stupid. I admired her and the way she slung her backpack over her shoulder and followed me down.

“You never liked chocolate cake? I thought it was your favorite.” I ask, incredulous. I’d made her a chocolate cake almost every year for her birthday since that first date, five years in a row.

The diner around us thrummed with intensity, but whether it was from the pelting rain and cacophonous thunder outside, or the people escaping the storm inside, or even the buzzing of the tableside lamp these kitschy diners seem to be so fond of, I didn’t know.

Maybe it was just from the two of us, failing to connect over the cheap vinyl. I remember our first time ducking into this place. It was a similar night. I’d wanted to go out to eat at a new fancy place in town, to show her a good time and treat her well. She’d wanted to stay in and hadn’t felt like going out anyways.

We settled on the local diner, a town staple for generations, which neither of us had ever been to.

It hadn’t been near as full that night, even with the storm. I spread out across the plastic bench seat, smiling over at her as she stared at the menu. God, she was so beautiful in the quiet of it all. Everything else seemed to melt away into nothing but her and the menu. Her and the way she tucked her hair back from her face with a rough swoop of her whole hand instead of the delicate touch that other girls seemed to have. Her and the way she nipped at a specific part on her lip when she was thinking, and the way her brows curled down in concentration, and the cute little line that popped up between them that told me she was thinking hard about what she wanted to eat.

The waitress had to ask me a few times what I wanted to drink before I even registered that there was another person there. I shook my head quickly and without breaking eye contact ordered water with extra ice, no straw. She’d already ordered a coffee, to warm her hands of course.

When the waitress dropped our drinks off and took our food orders, she immediately wrapped her hands around the mug. The happy noise she made as she dipped her head to first smell the coffee and then sip it made my chest warm as though I was drinking too. She always did that, made soft, happy noises as though no one else was around.

We finished dinner and she reached for my hand, leaning towards me with her fingers tracing over mine. She was about to speak when the waitress came over to our table.

“And how about dessert? We have a house-made chocolate cake on the menu.” The waitress tapped her notepad with her pen, waiting.

She made a noise and I immediately answered that we’d take one piece to share. The waitress walked away without a backward glance, and she squeezed my hand then pulled away. We shared the cake that night.

“It’s never been my favorite. I don’t even like cake, not really.” She still glows in that dull light, but it’s artificial now. I want to reach for her hands like I used to, but they’re still tucked away in her lap. She seems so distant now.

That’s when I realize… Maybe it was never about the chocolate cake.