No, I’m fine. I’ll just have a cherry coke, with lime.

Thanks for the tobasco.

Sure, a refill would be great.

Nothing, really. Studying, sort of. Sure, you can sit down.

I don’t know where they are. Home, I guess.

So, what’s going on with you and Michael?

Oh.

I’m sorry.

He can be really hard to deal with, sometimes. But you knew that.

Have you heard from Liz?

Can I ask you something?

Why did she leave?

Yeah, I guess I knew that. I guess it would have been really hard for her to be around us, after, you know. But do you know if she’s ok?

I guess I think about her a lot. I just want to know how she’s doing. I just want to know that she’s all right.

***

Hey

What is it?

Oh. When did she get back?

Have you talked to her? How is she?

Did she . . . did she ask about me?

Oh.

Maybe I should go see her.

You think I should wait.

You think I should let her come to me.

I didn’t mean to hurt her. Do you think she knows that?

Yeah, I guess we’re going to run into each other. I’ll wait for that.

Thanks. I’ll be ok.

*** I’m ok. Yeah, thanks, but really, I’m ok.

Wait.

Please stay

It’s just . . . it’s just that I saw Liz. On the street, I was with Isabel, talking about you and Michael, and all of a sudden, there she was. It was like an hour ago.

I didn’t do anything. I came here. I’ve been sitting here ever since. I don’t know what to do. You know how this summer has been. I was just waiting for her to come back.

Look, do we have to talk about this?

Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.

She was so beautiful, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. But she was different. There was something different about her.

You know what I mean, don’t you?

I figured you would.

I mean, she was all grown up somehow I felt out of place, next to her, in my baggy clothes. You know, I haven’t paid much attention lately to what I wear or how clean I am. Oh, you noticed? Thanks. I think I’ve lost weight this summer, which makes it even worse. You noticed that too? Great.

This is all wrong. It’s not supposed to happen this way. We are supposed to be together, I know it, with every part of me I know it I would do anything to have her back. But now I just don’t know what to do.

What was it like? It was awful. She wouldn’t let me touch her she wouldn’t even let me get near her and she wouldn’t let me say anything. She wouldn’t look at me, she kept staring off into the distance or down at the ground, like she was embarrassed to be standing there, talking to me.

No, I’m telling you, she wouldn’t even let me near her. I wanted to kiss her so badly I could barely hear what she was saying, and I felt like she was struggling not to touch me or look at me. I thought if I could just feel her in my arms again, everything would be all right. But I reached out to touch her, and she backed away from me. It was awful. I felt like such a jerk.

It was like she had it all planned and rehearsed, you know what she was going to say. She said she had given it a lot of thought over the summer, and she knew I had to fulfill my destiny. She said something about even if she could go with us, to wherever we are going, I wouldn’t let her.

I know. I tried to tell her that I would but she wouldn’t let me speak. She just rushed ahead, like she had to get the words out or they would get lost somewhere, she said she didn’t want to wait to get her heart ripped out, or something like that. She said some other things, too, but I couldn’t really hear her, because she said something that sort of made everything else disappear.

She said she loved me.

I know. But it gets worse. Let me finish.

She said she loved me, but that she knew she was going to lose me, so she had a choice to lose me now or lose me later. And she was choosing now, because later would just hurt too much.

I thought I was going to die, right there. It’s just that . . . I don’t know.

No, I’ll be ok.

Thanks. It smells nice. Yeah, it helped. What is it?

You know, I just don’t understand it. She still loves me, and yet she can walk away? I can’t do that. I don’t understand that. I will never understand that. Where does she get that kind of strength? I don’t have it.

I don’t understand, Maria. I just don’t get it.

And the worst part is, I started crying. I don’t know if she saw that, I hope she didn’t. The clouds had been getting really dark, and it started to rain. I think it started to rain when I started crying, so maybe it just looked like rain. I hope so.

But then she looked at me, for just a moment, and her eyes, Maria. Oh my god, her eyes.

I can’t describe it.

I guess it was like I was looking into her, and I could see me, inside her, and all this pain, and it was like she had given up hope. It was like she was standing there, screaming inside. It was like she was digging her heels in and refusing to move.

It was like she was dying on the inside and terrified to let me see it.

I told you I couldn’t describe it. But it was awful.