Her light was off, and her window was dark. Alyssa lay in bed, with one arm across her eyes. Her legs hung off the mattress, and she listened to her heart's binaural beats. 

Just then, her ringtone sounded. She pushed herself onto her elbows, and saw the glow from her screen. It was probably Jasmine, but it might be.... Leaning to one side, she grabbed the device from her windowsill. Sam's name shone in the dark.

Alyssa hesitated, and then tapped her screen. She held the phone to her ear and said, "Oh, hey, Sam."

"Hey," he said. 

"So, um," she asked, "how was your day?" 

"Oh, okay," he said. "I had a test in data journalism -"

What the hell's data journalism?

"- that was kind of a monstrosity."

"Oh," she said. "Do you think you passed?" 

"I don't know.... I probably passed, but...."

A silence followed, and then he said, "So, what are you doing tonight?"

"Um," she said, and looked around the room. "Does doing nothing count as doing something?"

Sam laughed, and Alyssa said, "I've always been too big of a nerd to go out during the week."

"Well," he said, "as a fellow nerd, I understand."

"Sometimes I don't even go out on the weekends," she said. She immediately felt that she'd shared too much, but then he asked, "Well, what about this weekend? Are you doing anything?"

"This weekend?" she asked, as if she had to think about it. "Um, no. I got nothing going on."

"Maybe we could go out," he said, and... how was she supposed to respond?

"Um, yeah, maybe," she said. "Like where?"

"Well, you know this city better than I do."

"Okay, um.... Have you been to the Art Museum?"

"Yeah," he said. "I mean, I haven't, but it sounds cool."

"Okay, um.... Saturday, then? Saturday afternoon?"

"Yeah, that sounds like fun." 

They chatted for a few minutes more, and when the call ended, Alyssa realized that she'd just made plans for a real actual date.