We ate lunch at the trendy place that sprung up by the public high school, where acne inflicted teenager’s loaf and languish behind sneeze guards, and chrome tiles line the walls so if you look at your reflection you can see yourself being shattered into fragments. I wasn’t hungry, well actually I was, but I had no intention of spending my money on something that will disappear in ten minutes, so I waited at a deserted booth, pressing my finger down on the table top, then removing it to see if any imprint remained. By the time he sauntered over to the table with his tray (he always walked in a springy manner, his frame jauntily moving in tune with the laws of gravity) the surface was peppered with the misshapen ovals of my thumb. There was a vacant seat opposite of me, but he sat down beside me and I could feel the warm leaden expanse of his thigh press up against mine. I pretended to yawn into the crook of my arm with enough dramatic flourish that allowed me to migrate a few inches away from him so I wouldn’t have to feel the warmth that radiated off his body brush against my skin.
“What are you eating?” When in doubt I talk about food, like elderly people do.
“A ham and cheese empanada.”
“ Oh.” Cheese is repulsive. The fact that they can market expired cow milk as an editable, always bewildered me. Ham is disgusting too. I can’t eat a pork product without hearing the quiet, inquisitive voice of babe.
Never the less, he devoured his food in the territorially tenacious way that teenage boys do, crumbs taking a desperate suicide plunge from his mouth to his lap, collecting in the expanse between his opened thighs.
The smell was overwhelming, I felt like repeatedly brushing away the curling tendrils of stench that wafted delicately from his food, tightening like a noose around my neck, while I maintained the ebb and flow of small talk. He took a break from his rapid consumption to take in a hearty swill of water, which ran down in tiny ravines from his lips, pooling past his chin until it dribbled onto his sweater. I look this break in expenditure to glance at his meal, it was repugnant. Ham and cheese congealed in a macabre mass that resembled something an infant might regurgitate on your shoulder. He caught me observing his plate and mistook my horror for desire.
“Want a bite?”
“No thanks…” I left my polite reply to dwindle in the air then to vaporize, too apprehensive to inhale due to the possibility that when I breathe, I might be able to taste the scent meandering from this animal byproduct monstrosity.
How in the hell does he expect me to kiss him after eating this? How is it even conceivable for me to touch his hand, which is paper weighted on my thigh and shining with grease?
How can I be with this boy whose calluses that are clustered his fingers are from marathon sessions of vapid warfare on his video games and has a lengthy string on cheese dangling precariously from his peach fuzz carpeted chin?
How could I have allowed myself to be ensnared with this boy who claims that all of the existing colors of the world are his favorite colors (even puce) and whose knowledge of current events barely surpasses who is our current president?
The empanada (which was now devoured into oblivion) fell out of my realm of concern, as this bizarre boyish stranger’s presence took its place in rapid succession. The stranger balled up his stained napkin and tossed it lazily onto his plate with overly gesticulated bravado and seized my hand. “Lets go.” He said and like a clumsy appendage I followed in suit.