Jump At The Chance

We end up in a surprisingly empty restaurant with a heavy abandoned bar theme, although, presumably, only half of that is intentional. The location was down a side street but still its the peak hours of operation and its… dead. Dying now we stand there in the entrance; a podium with a paper menu, a banker’s lamp in vibrant green and a bored looking waiter.

The waiter is attentive as soon as he sees us, excited even, he holds himself stiff, one arm behind his back and leads us to a booth. Drinks are bought and food is decided on by chance, Michael points at two starters and two mains, the menu is in anything from Spanish to Turkish with simple descriptions beneath. I am beginning to see why it is empty.

“So are you excited to get food poisoning?”

I shrug. It’s the closest gesture I have to the phrase I think we might just die here.

“You’re right, if we both get food poisoning then I can’t get you to nurse me to health. I have the outfit and everything. Good thing I chose different meals just to be safe.” He winks at me, pretty grey eyes shuttered by prettier lashes, “So I’m guessing you still can’t talk.”

I nod.

He nods back and reaches into his bag, “I was worried about that so I thought I’d bring this.”

Michael hands over a small notepad, lined, with a loop on the spine for a pen, the cover is a vague platitude about staying strong in the hard times, it’s a shade of purple I would describe as deep. I want to cry, openly, in this suspicious place. It’s sweet, it's lovely, so small. In my hands it's nothing but in my heart it's everything.

“I figured if you couldn’t talk maybe you could write.”

And I do write, word after word, page after page, I pour myself into the little book like it's a bowl, spilling over as we wait for our potential suffering to be plated. I tell him how I don’t know anything, how I lied to him, how much it tears me up inside that he might look at me one day and see someone useless and uncreative, someone not on his level, unworthy of him.

I write until our starters come and continue still, eating one handed, fervent now the cork has been removed; every thought over the past months filling inky pages. I tell him how much he means to me, how it only makes it worse when I’m not good enough, how much he’s opened my mind but how it still feels like so far to go. Once it all starts into recursion I look at the little book one last time and push it across the table.

We eat in silence as he reads, I worry my writing is messy, it makes no sense, I’ll seem insane because normal people don’t do this, they can just talk. I sip my drink, sweet, because if my mouth is left unattended it might scream. By the last page his brow is furrowed and his hand is still in mid-air, rereading line after line, flicking between the pages to cross reference my insane rambling.

He finally looks up at me and taps the book against my forehead, enough to startle, enough to hurt just a little, I probably deserve it, “You idiot,” he begins, “How can you write a whole essay on how you don’t understand art and then explain yourself perfectly.”

I blink, he continues;

“I think you get art perfectly fine, you just don’t have the background to back yourself up. You know the feelings but not the terms. I can teach you those easy, but to sense what someone is trying to do is much harder. I wouldn’t be so enthralled by you if I didn’t think you weren’t impressive this whole time. Dummy. You’re insightful and see things in a way I don’t, I love hearing your thoughts because they always surprise me. And I don’t think I could ever see you as beneath me.”

He pockets the book and reaches over to take my hand, it feels oddly hollow, the world is a little zoomed out, far away, not quite in focus beyond his face. I expected catastrophe but here I am eating a meal with my lover as if I’m normal, reasonable not insane. Is this how life should be?

Michael brings my fingers to his lips and kisses them, I feel the valley of his kiss on my knuckles, gentle, a little warmer than I’d expect. He drops my hands and reaches into his pocket again.

“Actually, do you think I should give you this?” He seems torn, holding it in his hands like it's as heavy as gold, “I want to hold onto every word you say but also…If you have it you can write when you need. Tricky.”

He settles on me, leaning over to tuck it into my shirt pocket. It fits perfectly against my heart, the pen folds out towards the world and is small enough not to dig into my chest.

I pull it out and flip to the next page, I write just two words, big enough to see across the table; Thank You

Michael collapses his head into hands, “You’re so fucking cute.” He peers through his fingers at me as if it would hurt for our eyes to meet, I understand the feeling.

The rest of the meal is food. It is flavoured with only salt by the taste of it and seems to contain vegetables and meat undiscovered by general society, I would call it a stew but it seems to defy any label being both dry and wet, soft and hard, and yet it is the best meal I have ever had in my life.

We walk through the city, arm around waist, holding close as the night threatens to separate us to different sides of the city. I lean on him, feel the slightest heat of his body through his coat and my jacket, the autumn evening is cool enough to provide justification but I think I'd use him for heat even if I was sweating.

Once I regain my voice I ask him to spend the night, “Of course there’s not much entertainment.”

“There’s you, and that’s entertainment enough.”