So he conned me into a coffee one day.

He drove us in his pickup truck, his smile growing wider as I tried to convince him how and why he was slowly destroying the planet he was living on. When I brought up future progeny as a ploy to make him understand that he was destroying the planet for more than himself, he asked me what type of a planet my children would live on, giving a look that promised more than it seemed. Half-way through my response I realized what the look meant and slapped him for insinuating that whatever this was would become anything so permanent as marriage. Unless he was planning on knocking me up, in which case I probably had grounds to try and smack him again.

He told me that I should be glad that he was planning a life for himself. I told him that he should leave me and my children out of it.

I opened the door when he reminded me that they would be his children as well.
---------------

A week later I found a rather unapologetic note filled with trite sayings and decked with hearts. Screening through the fluff I managed to pick out that while he wasn't sorry about what he said, he was rather upset that he hadn't managed to get a drink with me. Apparently I was free after school and was supposed to meet him next to the pick-up truck. On the front was a caricature of the nuclear family, hurriedly scribbled into being. It was only when I looked closer did I realize that the mother was a brunette, along with her son. Nose touching the paper, I saw the eyes of the children – the same grey I saw in the mirror everyday. The card fell.
----------------

As it happened, I was busy after school, and every day afterwards. It seemed like each day was a new shot at evasion, and suddenly I had more excuses than I could handle.

“Oh sorry, I have band”

“I have to take care of my sister”

“I have to finish a project”

Two days later I found yet another note, this time containing a list.

“You hate band.”

“You have an older sister ”

“You finished that project three weeks ago”

Each and every time I put him off, I found a Post-it that said otherwise. He started catching my eye in the hallway, looking at my locker, smirking. Every note was a chess-move, every strategic crumple was done to create maximum pain.
------------------

I caved two months later.

His smile was oddly beautiful, coming out at the strangest moments while we drove back to the coffee shop - when I hooked my hair behind my ear, stared at freckles or scratched my nose. He watched the passing cars, nodding a little to the music from the radio but making no effort at conversing. Looking at my nails had ceased to interest me five minutes previously, so I decided to take life into my own hands. I proved how incapable they truly were when I voiced the first thought in my head.

“Why won't you talk?

He laughed this time, wholeheartedly, grinning as he looked past his shoulder. Pausing to flip off the car that had overtaken us, he raised an eyebrow as I started to blush again. I put my hand on the door-handle, reminding him of the thin ice he was treading as he laughed harder. His phone rang, and amidst more cursing than necessary, we were informed that he was needed back at the shop. I promised to reschedule “on pain of death” as his pickup pulled out of my driveway.

-----------------
Three days later we were crying in a meadow.

“It was just so sad. He...he died...”

“Sniff. I know. Too soon”

“They didn't get married!”

“Did they need to?”

“Jack....the iceberg took you too soon...”

I don't remember how it happened, just that it did. One day we were watching the Titanic in class, and the next we were sobbing on each-others clothes, stumbling towards the pick-up as we took turns driving while the other burst out into tears. We had a couple near misses, our vision blurring, the car swerving as we had to pull over to switch seats. Somehow we knew exactly where to go, as he pulled into the patch of green and we both staggered out, leaning heavily as we fell down together.

Eventually the tears stopped, leaving salty residue as we lay side by side. At one point our hands had met and our fingers intertwined, but in the post-Titanic world little things like that had ceased to matter. We looked at each other as we recognized what had just happened, that here we were, spending time with one another, crying, and now laughing as we remembered that of course Jack and Rose didn't actually exist.

He released his hand, staring longingly into the distance.

“I don't suppose you'd be willing to forget everything that just happened?”

“Why?”

“It wasn't very manly, was it...”

“And..”

“Isn't that what girls want? A manly man? Isn't that what you want?” His voice was becoming slightly hysterical as he looked at everything but me. “Because your last boyfriend was an intellectual, but the one before was a musician, but the one before that was a painter, and the one before-”

“Is there a point to this?” My past romantic adventures weren't exactly comforting in this scenario. Or really in any scenario whatsoever.

“-then the only one left are the manly men. The jocks. The athletes. Those are the only types of people you haven't broken up with.” And suddenly everything made sense.

“My last boyfriend hated the concept of kissing” I blurted out. “Apparently sharing spit was a perfectly useless vocation he had no need for. The one before wrote songs where I died and he killed himself to be with me, and all the painter wanted a nude model. Is that what you want...”

“I would never do that!” His cheeks flushed, his brows furrowed with shocked indignation as he absorbed the information for what seemed to be the first time.

“I didn't say you would. I wouldn't be on a date with you otherwise” I reeled, attempting to cover the shock I felt at the statement I had just uttered. A date?

He was considerably less skilled, the speed that hope overtook the hopelessness on his face almost made it worth it. “Is that what this is.” It seemed more of a statement than a question.

“Well what was your definition again? A gathering..”

“of two people, in this case me and you, where we talk and laugh, preferably not cry, preferably with something to drink. Sometimes ends with a kiss, which may be of the mind-blowing variety. A social activity many like to partake in, and one that I would very much like to participate in with you.” He finished the statement, word-for-word as he recalled our former conversations with what looked like nostalgia. He laughed deeply as I bit my lip, taking a step forward as I started to speak.

“We're talking, you just laughed, and I guess we cried. Inside my bag I have some water, and it hasn't ended yet, has it?” I tried to slap myself for sounding like a stupid little girl, but before my hand reached my left cheek I was wrapped in a hug that left me seeing spots for minutes after.

The laugh was louder as he spun me in a circle. Onlookers surely would have commented on the trashy chick-flickiness of the scene, but in the solitude I couldn't bring myself to care. I did look askance when he started carrying me bridal-style towards the pick-up.

“This is not a date. I refuse to accept that us crying over Jack and Rose, may their souls rest in peace, as a date. In fact, I’m deciding that its not. As such, since you've so wonderfully brought up the topic, I think that we should go on one. What say you?”

I slapped him over the head before replying that if he spoke about our future children even once, he would find himself incapable of ever bringing said progeny into existence. There was much postulating and waving of the Swiss army knife he kept in the glove compartment.

He pressed his lips together, turned on the radio and set off, leaving me to observe once again.