Less Intense Red #16

This was their favorite restaurant, well actually his favorite restaurant; she never cared for it much, she would only agree to go simply because she did not like making decisions and would rather be sitting somewhere that had no impact then standing in the kitchen deciding where to go.

Shortly after they sat down, smiling, gawking almost, he opened his mouth and said, "You never change. Time never touches you."
She smiled briefly and replied, "I am not a sun worshipper, that might have something to do with it."
"That's because you are the sun, radiant, I swear you never change." He said.

Leaving her face blank, she let her eyes wander around the room. Everything was still the same, mostly the same waitresses, with exception for a few. Even the waitress he used to call Grandma was working, like time knew nothing, and as she sat there feeling his gaze, maybe time was ignorant.

How did I end up here? Just a second ago I was sitting at home working on my computer and now, here I am, menu in hand, deciding what entrée to split with my ex.

She lit a cigarette to remove the thoughts from her head, adjusted the silverware on the table and then looked at him, trying to look how he remembered her and not how in so many ways she has changed since he last was a vital part of her life.

"I should get a crazy tattoo." he said.
"Another?"
"Yeah like on my ass or something"
He was milling over the thought of how to tell her about his new tattoo in his head. She never liked tattoos and he only got the first one after they broke up because he felt that she no longer had say, maybe it was out of spite; payback the hurt he felt when she broke up with him seven months ago.
Before she could even question him, he slightly lifted up the sleeve of his shirt and then let it fall down again, as if he decided against showing her. She caught the hesitation in his eyes as he did this and could sense what was going on, reached across the table, pulled up at his shirt sleeve and with a hard awkward movement, laughed and said, "Come on, let me see it." He lifted up his sleeve and turned his arm in towards her, resting his elbow in the table as if he was getting ready to arm wrestle.
"What in the hell made you get that?" she said, a little too loudly.
She quieted her voice as if suddenly realizing she was in church and whispered, "Well, were you drunk?"
"A little," he let out a chuckle.
She sighed like her mother, and then let out a laugh at what she thought had to be the last tattoo on earth that she would ever want to see on her ex-boyfriends biceps. Anyone's Biceps for that matter.

In-between her heckling him about his tattoo and him saying, "It's not that bad!" the waitress came by to take their order, which they had finally decided on what to get, a difficult decision since neither of them were hungry. It was one of the new waitresses. She was relieved, not having to make small talk to one of the regular wait staff, who had gotten to know them quite well when they were regulars.
"Can we have a chicken sandwich with cheddar cheese and grilled onions and an order of potato skins."
"Sure thing," the waitress replied, in a half attempt to sound enthused about working the late shift.
"Anything to drink?"
They looked at each other and she replied "Water is fine, thanks."
The waitress rolled her eyes over to the other side of the table, "And what can I get for you?"
He didn't say anything.
"That's for both of us, sorry I should have explained." She offered up.
The waitress made a note on her checkbook and walked away.

Yeah time hasn't changed a thing, she was still ordering for him because he was always shy and embarrassed about his accent. Somehow he had always linked people not understanding him, to him being stupid. A totally inane insecurity complex she always thought. She never understood how it could be so hard for him to just simply order, but it was just old habit and she wasn't going to make him order for himself starting now. After all it was over right? This relationship that was like the Titanic with an indecisive floatation device.
She smiled across the table and asked herself what she was doing there.

It was just normalcy, is all. Is it so bad that she just wanted to not live in the future and decided that the past for one night would be safer? Was it safer? Her mind fought back and forth over her decision that she made to actually see him again.

When he had called earlier, she was caught off guard. She hadn't heard from him in almost three months, but she thought about him a lot, and now here he was sitting in front of her, only she wished she was still missing him from afar, instead of missing him from across a booth table in the smoking section.

It's not like she missed the relationship as much as she missed him and his presence in her life, only he will never understand this. He thinks she is crazy for missing him and not missing the relationship, and she is crazy, there is no doubt.

He hadn't changed at all. He patiently waited to go to the restaurant while she finished typing up some writing she was working on. He kept himself entertained by grabbing one of the baby shoes off the top of her computer monitor.
"Those are my baby shoes," she said.
She stopped typing, swiveled her chair towards him and reached into one of the shoes and pulled out two ID bracelets.
"This is from when my mother was in the hospital giving birth to me." She said, as she placed them in his oversized hand.
"Look how small my bracelet is" she laughed, "Hard to believe this could fit around my wrist now, I'd be lucky if it fit around my big toe. My mother gave these shoes to me a couple months ago when I was over for a visit. I keep them on my monitor to remember that I was innocent at one time, another hard thing to believe." She said, suddenly falling into a solemn silence.
"That's not how we do it in Mexico" he exclaimed, trying to break her deep stare as she gazed past the white MaryJane shoes and into space.
After a few seconds, his words caught on and as she continued to stare at something imaginary, she asked in an overly monotone voice, "Oh, how do they do it in Mexico? Do tell."
"Well, you don't get fancy bracelets" he said.
She turned to him and gave him her full attention.
"Oh, what, do they just say pick out one you like on the way out?"
"No, they take black grease paint and they put matching numbers on the heads of the babies and their mothers" he said seriously, as he moved over towards the window and looked outside.
She busted out laughing.
"That was as good of a story as the one you told me about how your family was so poor that you didn't have a shirt, so your mother painted buttons on your chest."
He was amused that she still remembered that story. But in her head those were the things she could never forget about him. How light he made of his poverty as a child, having seen it first hand when she went to Mexico to visit him. It was that strength that she admired, that and his good sense of humor.

He picked off the grilled onions that was on his half of the chicken sandwich, this caught her eye since he was the one that suggested getting the grilled onions. But now it was obvious, he suggested the onions, not because he liked them, but because he knew that was the way she always ordered it. He never thinks about himself, only her, and it's those small things that she feels guilty about the next day, knowing that him picking off the onions means he still loves her. She feels guilty because he deserves better then her, because she never treated him with the same admiration, the same love. She treated him with love, only smaller, and with a less intense red.

When the check was served she offered up money for her half of the bill and he instantly pushed her money away, even though he had just lost his job. Getting a job is not easy for an illegal alien, but now that he got a fake driver's license, driving to get to and from work would not be a problem.

His name is now Gorge, according to the fake, but totally real looking ID, Another thing she forbid him to do when they were together, but now, after seven months, he can do what he wants, he can tattoo his body, he can pay five hundred dollars under the table for a fake ID. In a way this made her happy even though she did not approve, it meant he was moving on. Only he hasn't and they both were aware of it as they stared at each other from across the table with nothing more to say then. "Wanna get out of here?"