Over Lunch (Fiction)

“Who am I to you?”

The amount that this question bothered me must have been obvious by the expression that grew across my face.

“It’s the simplest question.”

He often asked questions like this; and I guess that is why I enjoyed getting lunch sporadically like I did. But answering that question as such I figured would give him the haunting limited reality of that label.

“She was on the crew team; did I mention that?”

It appeared my silence gave him opportunity to moved back to the original reason we were sitting above half empty mismatched mugs at the wobbly two-top in the corner overlooking the busy street. My view down the road opened up to an onramp to a highway, and his, a dirty church, or meeting hall, we never found out which.

I smirked—suddenly aware I could turn the original question back to him. I didn’t even need to speak before he was quick enough to detect my combat.

“It’s not fair to ask that about her. She was just someone I slept with. Those people don’t mean anything to anyone.”

“Fine. We don’t need to talk about her anymore.” I paused. “Then, what am I to you?”

Annoyed as he was for my silence on the topic, he was unnervingly quick to speak.

“You are the only person who appreciates that I order my pens from that ceramics store in San Francisco.”

I laughed, because that was most likely true. Of the population at hand where we both studied, I was probably one of his few friends that had actually been to Heath Ceramics, and I do remember signing my receipt with a particularly pleasing black ink pen.

He stood up unexpectedly to refill his mug. I thought I noticed a break of sunshine in the grey sky, but after closer examination it was the reflection off of a blue suburban parked down the road.

“You’re not really my friend, because we don’t really hang out. You’re more just a person who I catch up with over late lunch every couple of weeks so that if I need someone interesting in the interim to bounce a question off of over text, you feel obligated to respond.”

 I looked up from my mug and the pattern of a cat that was appearing at the base as I consumed more of the opaque black liquid. I wasn’t sure if the words had come from my mouth or his, but upon realizing it was he who handled their eloquent delivery as he sat back down at our perch, I smiled.

“Don’t you wish everyone could be as honest as that?”

He stabled the table as he set down his now-full mug, flashing a face of confusion.

“With each other, I mean. Recognize why they exist in each other’s lives. It would leave a lot less to imagination.”

“Ah,” he laughed, realizing the reason behind my clarification. “I made the face because I was almost worried you felt the same way about me as I do about you.”

“Does that make us terrible people?”

“Because we know exactly who we are, and the small insignificant role other people play in our theatrics?” He started. I knew we had finally reached the point in our lunch where we would conclude whatever we were discussing. I always admired his confidence with distilling our arguments to such simple, terrible conclusions. “I just don’t think it makes us people at all.” 

Fragment