By Another Name

Chapter 7.

I ordered spaghetti and meatballs with a bottle of wine. We're talking and eating and after a while in walks a girl that I am sure is a bit out of place. White t-shirt, jeans, trainers, fit and her red hair is what it's about. She sprints towards Denton, which surprises me. 

"Look at you!" She says and hugs him tightly.

She turns to me as though we've known each other our whole lives and says "Look at you!" and pulls me up into a warm hug. I am very very used to people I don't know touching me intimately, and feeling as though they know exactly who I am when they do. I've taken to pulling faces frequently to help my tension in these situations, but unexpectedly, whether it was the journey or the wine, I get nothing negative from her familiarity at all...it just seems genuinely warm and honestly, it gives me quite a rise.

We are clearly the only ones under 62 in this establishment in the middle of nowhere, and no one is paying us any mind. This is also a highly arousing fact for me. Her face, though not made up too much, is pleasant and open and freckled. She's just pretty. She is just normal.

"Denton! Talk to me!" she opens as she sits down. The waiter comes over to us again, she orders wine and spaghetti and meatballs absently, my exact meal, but not with any indication that she realizes it. She is next to Denton, across from me, and she is focused on him.

Denton starts a conversation that I am very interested in hearing, to my surprise. He begins with the fact that he has missed her and her family since he lived with them years ago as an exchange student here in the middle of nowhere. They reminisce about high school in the little town, and where everyone is, and I realize that though she looks young she is actually 27, and I am surprised. She is completely ignoring me, and I can't tell if its a ruse, or if she is just completely oblivious.