Trial & Error

When you're sitting pathetically alone with even the bartender paying least attention to you,  at the bar with nothing but a tumbler of virgin tonic and a lot of time to waste, your mind starts a chain of these useless thoughts which keep on spinning for hours on end, leaving you to wonder how did you end there.

So, the night after her breakup with her three months old boyfriend, when my roommate, Kenzie, decided she needed a girls day out, she for some ludicrous reason also decided it would be fun to drag me along with her despite my incessant pleadings for the otherwise.

I wasn't happy about it, but I also wasn't going to sulk about it. Though, in all honesty I was a bit mad as I was in the middle of writing a really emotional reunion of Duffy the panda with his family.

Also, I knew it was going to become my responsibility of getting the girls safely back to their places (damn the righteously ethical side of me). Hence, the virgin drink.

Anyway, so while I was sitting at the bar, drinking a horrible mixture of guava and pineapple (I guess) and popping the spiced peanuts into my mouth, chain of thoughts began spinning. It commenced with a peanut missing my mouth and falling onto the ground, making me muse about gravity — its discovery and its importance in everyday life. Gradually, I started noticing how the world, the entire universe, just worked on the laws and principles of science.

There was a law for everything. Everything was tested, experimented and observed upon by scientists.

So, how come the most common thing in the world, the thing everyone did in their life, was left un-studied?

There had to be some research carried out on this too. Almost immediately I whipped out my phone and Googled: Studies made on Love so far

The results popped up after a few seconds of delay. Okay, so there were studies performed in the field.

Then, I Googled: The Relationship Formula.

There popped up many self help books, various links to various blogs and sites I wasn't interested in looking at. I wasn't satiated. I was curious now, like Sir Newton must've been when the apple fell onto his head. I wanted to know how and why of relationships. I wanted to know how w some of the couples last, why do they last and what is that one factor that they have and others don't?

I had to write it all down somewhere. For some reason at that time, something in the idea was too appealing. So much so that I couldn't even wait to get home, I had to write it down.

Hence, opening the memo app in my phone, I began typing whatever the heck came to my mind in order to make it permanent and ponder about it later.

I was barely halfway through when a tap on my shoulder made my wire of creativity snap, pulling me back to the present from my lovely reverie of me receiving some sort of an award for the wonderful discovery I made.

When I looked up, I was confused for a moment to find a man in suit with blonde hair tousled in weird manner that screamed he'd just had wild sex. He had the thinnest set of lips which were curved up on one side into a lopsided, sort of arrogant smirk, and the darkest pair of blue eyes that had me lost in them. Probably because they were a color I had never seen on anyone and I wanted to burn it to my memory.

“Hi,” he began in a suave manner, causally leaning beside my stool against the bar.

“Hi,” I breathed unable to look away from his eyes.

His smirk got wider. It must've been the stupefied look on my face or the breathless “hi”.

“I'm Gavin and I was wondering, have you met my friend here?”

That was when I turned my attention to the guy awkwardly standing a little away from his friend. He was tall, definitely a six foot something with broad shoulders just like his friend in front of me. But unlike his friend, he wasn't dressed to nines in an immaculate suit. Oh, no. He had donned on a pair of black sweatpants below a gray hoodie over a wine red T-shirt. His hair were tousled too but in more of a I-just-got-out-of-bed-and-haven't-bothered-to-shower kind of way. He was a brunette with dark eyes probably. I couldn't be sure as the reflection of the strobe lights inside the club on his glasses obscured his eyes from my notice.

Under my scrutiny, he shifted uncomfortably and pushed his glasses back on his nose. I tried to be warm and smiled at him.

“No,” I replied to the other guy, “I most certainly haven't.” Widening my grin, I stretched my hand out to the shabbily dressed guy who seemed a bit taken aback by my actions. “Hi,” I said, ignoring the surprise and keeping my voice polite and sweet, “I am Darcy.”

Hesitantly, he took my hand and shook it firmly once. “Caiden.”

With a nod he retracted his hand back so quickly that I was almost certain he was going to whip out a sanitizer and disinfect his hands right there. Sadly, he didn't do anything like that.

“And, I'm out,” said the immaculate-suit-guy and slipped away. “Have fun!”

My eyes followed him for a while till he reached a girl on the dancefloor and started dancing with her.

“God, his eyes are so blue,” I muttered dreamily before returning my gaze to Caiden who was still standing there awkwardly, looking at me with unsure eyes. “I don't bite, you know,” I said with a teasing smile.

I think I saw a side of his lips curve up slightly before he stepped forward and occupied the stool beside mine. He faced the bartender and lifting two fingers, signalled for his presence.

“A neat whiskey on rocks, please.”

After ordering his drink, he turned his head to me while the bartender went his way to prepare the order.

“What?” he asked, when I kept staring at him.

“Just wondering what in your life went so downhill that you're in a bar in your pyjamas ordering a neat whisky in the middle of a Sunday.”

Turning away his gaze, he sighed. “A complicated, long story.”

“Well, I have the time.”

He turned his appraising gaze to me and studied me for a minute. “What about you?” His gaze flickered from mine to the bartender for a second where he thanked him for the drink. “What are you doing here on a Sunday?”

“Roommate dragged me along,” I sighed. “Her three months old relationship ended yesterday. So, you know, the breakup routine.”

His brows flew up. “Sorry, The what?”

“The breakup routine. Don't tell me you're unfamiliar with it. You seem to be following that pattern, too.”

His eyes went wide as if he was shocked for some reason. I wondered if I'd said something wrong. I mean, sometimes I just let my mouth run without even thinking properly. Caiden faced away and took a huge gulp of his whiskey.

Okay, so I'd hit a spot there. He was actually following the Breakup routine. I instantly felt guilty.

“I am sorry,” I apologized, repeatedly smacking myself in the face with a fish mentally.

He just shrugged and we both lapsed into a bout of silence for a few minutes. I wasn't sure if he was going to speak again or not, so I turned the screen of my phone on and entered the passcode with the intention of passing my time by scrolling down my Facebook or Instagram feed.

I had completely forgotten about what I'd been doing before Caiden and his friend had made an appearance, hence when the screen of my phone unlocked, staring back at me were words: EXPERIMENTAL LOVE written in capitals.

Of course, Caiden had chosen that exact moment to glance in my direction and of course he'd caught the words on the screen no matter how quick I was in pressing the home button and getting rid of them. Therefore, after only a short moment, when I heard his solemn voice, I wasn't surprised at all.

“What was that?”

Now, it was my turn to study him and wonder if he was worth sharing this secret with. I mean, he could steal my idea, conduct the experiment, obtain results and patent it to his name. It was a possibility.

Then, there was a greater chance of him just laughing in my face.

I decided I could live with the latter. I wasn't however sure if I'd be okay with the former.

Nevertheless, I decided to risk it and shrugged. “Just an idea that popped into my head a while ago,” I went, and further narrowing my eyes, I added, “before I was interrupted by your friend.”

“What kind of idea?” he asked, partly curious and partly amused. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “if you don't mind me prodding, that is.”

I smiled. “No, I don't mind you prodding. But its a long, complicated theory.”

He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall right in front of us and said, “I have got plenty of time, luckily enough. So...proceed.”

“Okay,” I began, taking a deep breath and exhaling. “So, you know, how everything around us science, right? Its all facts, laws, principles that are fixed.”

“Mhm,” he nodded, attentively.

“Well, I thought, that if that's the case with everything, what if that's the case with love too? I mean, what if its nothing but simple science that some people understand and majority don't?” I paused, in case he wanted to burst out laughing right now, but his face remained impassive. He simply nodded, so I continued, “I mean, how is it that some love stories last forever while others can't even last for a week?”

As I spoke, I could feel my excitement regarding the idea surging back through my veins. The curiosity, the desire to know was burning through me once more.

“So, I was thinking of conducting an experiment, you know? Study a couple under set of circumstances? And obtain inferences?”

“Well, its a nice theory, but a bit difficult to put to practice, isn't it?”

I huffed. I had already realized that. Although the idea was ridiculous, I couldn't help entertain it. I mean, what couple would let me tag along with them like a third wheel and note down their every move.

I laughed. “I mean, it would be funny though to be roaming around as the third wheel and jotting down and analysing someone's every move.”

He chuckled too and took a sip of his whiskey. After having thought of something for a while, he asked, “so, how are you planning to do it?”

I laughed. “I hadn't exactly planned on doing anything, yet. Obviously no one would want to be my lab-rat. Well, at least not until I offer to pay them or something — which I can't —”

He interrupted me and asked, “what do you do?”

“I am a student here at NYU.”

“What do you study? Science?” He raised a brow.

“Economics,” I told him with a shake of my head and burst out laughing when I saw the utterly confused look on his face. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” He took final gulp of his whiskey and signalled the bartender for a refill. In the meanwhile, he turned to me and went, “so do you have an alternative plan?”

I shrugged. “I haven't had the time to ponder over it that much. Although, now that I think of it...it might make sense if I were to be my own labrat along with a partner, you know?”

“Go on...”

The excitement returned with full force “Like, for the sake of science, I get together with someone willing to part take in this study and we study each other. You know, what we are doing wrong and what other person doesn't like about us. We make a list of it and change what's changeable and never repeat the mistakes ever again.”

The bartender placed his refilled tumbler in front of him and he listed his head to nod at him briefly before he turned his entire attention to me.

“It wouldn't be easy, though,” he said, lifting his glass to his lips and gulping a chunk.

I hugged out another sigh. “Tell me about it. Finding a partner is going to be the toughest challenge.”

“I don't think that would be the problem. The problem will be convincing that partner for this...,” he gestured his hand around.

His indirect compliment made my cheeks momentarily warm up. But he had a point. Who was ever going to agree to this? I mean, relationships these days  work on the trial and error concept. You try it out. You like it, you stay. You don't, just walk away.

Letting out another sigh, I kept staring ahead. Caiden's phone started ringing, then and he pulled it out. Looking at the screen he grimaced and threw an apologetic glance my way.

“I am so sorry, I better take this,” he spoke in a haste, as he stood up. “Stay here, I'll be back in five,” he promised and dashed off towards the door of the bar.

All of a sudden, I felt weird sitting alone. Hence, I checked my phone for any calls or texts from Kenzie which weren't there. I took a look around in hopes of spotting her but she was no where to be found. Her friends however looked like they were in a trance, dancing like mad women to the music. I craned my neck and looked about more carefully this time, but I couldn't spot her anywhere.

I wanted to wait for Caiden but I couldn't even leave Kenzie to be kidnapped and used by some pervert. So, acting simply on impulse, I asked the bartender for a tissue and scribbled my number on it before placing the napkin under Caiden's drink. Now, I could only hope he wouldn't throw away the napkin without even glancing at it.

•••

Darcy - Lana Candor

Theo James - Caiden