Never getting as far as booked

For five months you moved the appointment without ever cancelling it, because you never got as far as booking, and each reason you gave yourself lasted only as long as the next one took to arrive. On November 12th you booked it, and the four minute thing fit between a client cancelling and the next one arriving.

The reasons arrive in order and each one holds for a while. The insurance, which covers it; waiting until after the birthday, which has now passed; wanting to go together, which you have never once proposed to Danny; being busy, which is true of everything else you do manage to book. The thing itself takes four minutes and you know that because you have had the page open twice.

What the not-booking protects is the state of things before the appointment, where it is yours and theoretical rather than real and timed and shared.