Separate Ways - Byler

IX - Miss You, Love Pt. 2

As it turned out, "somewhere a little more private" referred to some kitschy little coffee shop decorated with every shade of pink under the sun and with more velvet than could ever be necessary in one place. Almost as soon as I had entered the tiny room, I'd become lightheaded due to the stench of perfume that I was pretty sure they must have drenched the entire room with before opening that morning. The air was thick with an unfamiliar, cloying incense that mingled horribly with the perfume until I could physically taste the overpowering sweetness that floated through the air and threatened to clog up my lungs. I couldn't imagine a place less to my own tastes but Mike had declared it "cute" and so I followed him in without a word of complaint as I could sense how the anxiety from the discussion he wanted to have was radiating from his skin in waves. If that godawful place would be what could soothe him then, hell, who was I to judge it?

Whilst I was glancing around at the interesting portraits of pugs in tutus that crowded the wall to the right of the entrance so much so that the rose wallpaper was barely visible beneath, Mike stepped forward and flashed a winning smile at the platinum blonde woman who stood behind the front desk. She led us to a table covered by a cerise tablecloth made from, you fucking guessed it, yet more crushed velvet. There, the two of us took our seats on the dusty pink armchairs and were forced to remove at least three unnecessary (velvet) cushions each before we could properly sit down, and ordered our drinks.

The silence that loomed between us seemed to grow louder and louder as Mike stared at his lap, playing nervously with his fingers and my gaze lingered on only him. I focused every ounce of my energy on the boy before me and I observed the worry that plagued his facial features and how it had sculpted a deep crease between his eyebrows due to his furrowed brow. I longed to reach out to him, to smooth out the line that offended me more than I could begin to explain. I wanted to banish all things negative from his life because he has always been good, so good, and the darkness that tainted my own life had no business worming its destructive way into Mike's!

Silently, I chastised myself for my desires to touch him as I knew that I no longer had the right to feel the warmth and smoothness of his freckled skin beneath the palms of my hands no matter how much I dreamed of it. The boy, with whom I was sharing a table in a coffee shop that was so intimately and densely decorated it was bordering on grotesque, was no longer mine and I had spent the last few years of my life struggling to deal with that knowledge and so falling back into old habits would be the epitome of terrible ideas. As a result, I understood that I would have to find a different solution in my quest to rid Mike of his troubles. Fortunately, having known the boy for almost the entire span of my life provided some invaluable insight into his heart and I settled upon distracting him until he had mustered the courage to free the words I could almost see frolicking on the tip of his tongue.

"Tell me about home, Mikey." I requested as I accepted my latte from the waitress with a grateful nod, "Last night I was so caught up in the shock of seeing you that I didn't ask a single thing about anyone from back home. How's the Party doing?"

Mike raised his dark eyes to meet mine and I witnessed the sparkle of gratitude that glimmered like moonlight on the surface of the sea within them and I knew he had sussed my plan to buy him some time. Smart bastard.

"Well, they all miss you. Every one of them does, they're not going to fucking believe it when I tell them about this week. They're all doing well, really well. Dustin got offered scholarships to every goddamn college he applied to, they all wanted him and that big ass brain of his. A college in Utah offered him a full fucking ride for pretty much as long as he wants it, including any post-grad studies he wants to do so he went that way without a second thought. He met this girl called Suzie there. They've been together pretty much since their first week of classes Freshman Year." Mike chuckled fondly as he considered our friend and I listened attentively, desperate to soak up any and all information he could offer.