My First Love

Chapter 6: What Abdullahi Said

I made the mistake of telling Abdullahi about the coffee.

Not a mistake in the way things go wrong — nothing went wrong. It was a mistake in the sense that Abdullahi, once given information, processed it with a thoroughness that could feel uncomfortably like being audited.

We were in his apartment Wednesday evening. Small, immaculate, organized with the quiet precision of someone who found disorder physically uncomfortable. Books arranged by subject. Desk completely clear except for whatever he was currently working on. A single plant on the windowsill that was, improbably, thriving.

Peter was on the couch. I was in the armchair. Abdullahi was at his desk, turned to face us.

I gave the account. Harlow Brew. Forty minutes. The conversation. *Next time she's buying.*

When I finished, Abdullahi was quiet for a moment.

"You like her," he said. Not a question.

"I barely know her."

"That is not what I asked."

I looked at him. "Yes," I said. "I like her."

He nodded slowly, with the manner of someone confirming a variable in an equation. "Then you need to be honest about that. Not immediately. Not forcefully. But clearly, and soon." He paused. "Women like Prisca — observant, direct, self-possessed — they do not respond well to ambiguity. If she cannot read your intentions, she will simply move on. Not out of cruelty. Out of efficiency."

Peter pointed at Abdullahi from the couch. "He's right."

"You don't even know her," I said.

"I know the type," Abdullahi said. "I grew up around women like that. My mother. My older sister." A brief pause. "They respect clarity. Even when the answer is no, they prefer it to a maybe that goes nowhere."

The room was quiet for a moment.

"I'm not asking her out after six days," I said.

"I did not say ask her out," Abdullahi said patiently. "I said be clear. Those are different things. Clarity does not require a declaration. It just requires that when she looks at you, she is not confused about what she sees."

---

Thursday passed without incident.

I had a morning lecture, an afternoon study session, and a long conversation with my mother who called to ask if I was eating properly and to remind me that Chicago winters were worse than Boston winters in a way she seemed to feel was personally important.

I thought about what Abdullahi said.

*When she looks at you, she is not confused about what she sees.*

The thing was, I was not entirely sure what I was showing her. I was careful with people — had been since I was a kid, a habit built partly from temperament and partly from watching my parents mistake performance for communication for too many years. I had learned early to hold things inward. To present a controlled surface.

It had served me reasonably well in most situations.

I was beginning to suspect it would not serve me here.

---

Friday. Room 204. Two o'clock.

Prisca was already seated when I arrived — which had not happened before. She was reading something on her phone, unhurried, and looked up when I came down the row.

"You're early," she said.

"Occasionally," I said, sitting down. "You're earlier."

"I'm always early." She said it plainly, no pride in it, just fact. "I don't like arriving after things have started."

"Even casual things?"

"Especially casual things." She pocketed her phone. "Formal things have structure. Casual things have atmosphere, and atmosphere sets before you arrive. I like being part of the setting."

I looked at her. "I've never heard anyone explain early arrival as an atmospheric preference."

"Now you have." The corner of her mouth moved.

Ellis walked in before I could respond, which was probably fortunate because I did not have anything ready.

---

The lecture was on interview methodology — designing questions, managing bias, the ethics of researcher-subject relationships. Ellis was good today, concrete and sharp, pulling examples from real studies. I took notes and paid attention and was only occasionally distracted by the fact that Prisca's handwriting was extraordinarily neat for someone writing at speed.

At one point Ellis asked the room a question about leading questions in qualitative research and the room did what rooms do — went quiet and looked at the desk.

Prisca answered. Clearly, concisely, correctly.

Ellis pointed at her. "Exactly. What's your name?"

"Prisca Hayden."

Ellis nodded and moved on. Beside me, Prisca calmly continued writing as though she had not just been the only person in thirty students to respond. No performance. No satisfaction displayed. Just — answered the question and returned to work.

I wrote *Prisca Hayden* in the margin of my notebook before I realized I was doing it.

---

After class we walked out together. The fork in the quad was ahead.

"Coffee?" I said.

She glanced at me. "It's my turn to buy."

"I remember."

We went to Harlow Brew. Same table by the window. Same orders — flat white, black coffee. She raised an eyebrow slightly at my cup again.

"Still black," she observed.

"Still black."

"Strong preferences," she said, echoing herself from Tuesday. Something in her expression suggested she had meant to do that.

The conversation moved differently today — easier, less careful. She told me about her reading group, four people who met Thursday evenings to discuss media theory, and described one member named Greg who disagreed with everything reflexively, on principle, regardless of content.

"Every group has a Greg," I said.

"He means well," she said. "He just experiences agreement as a form of intellectual surrender."

I laughed. "That is an extraordinarily generous interpretation."

"I practice generous interpretations," she said. "It's more interesting than the alternative."

---

Twenty minutes in she looked at me with that direct, unhurried look.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Why are you being careful with me?"

The question landed cleanly, the way her questions tended to.

I could have deflected. I had the instinct for it — a practiced redirect, something light and sideways. But I thought about Abdullahi's words. *Clarity does not require a declaration.*

"Because you seem worth being careful with," I said.

A quiet moment passed.

She held my gaze steadily. Not searching — more like confirming something she had already half-decided.

"Okay," she said.

Just that.

She picked up her cup and the conversation moved forward, easy and unhurried, as if the moment had simply taken its place and settled.

But something had shifted. Slightly, unmistakably.

Something had been said and received.

---

Walking back across campus the light was low and golden.

At the fork she half-turned as always.

"Same class Tuesday, Daniel."

"Same class Tuesday, Prisca."

She faced forward and walked.

I stood at the fork and thought about what Abdullahi had said.

*When she looks at you, she is not confused about what she sees.*

I thought she might not be confused anymore.