Prose by Elaine Nichols
Art by Monica Feng
He’d have asked her to lunch sometime if she hadn’t walked into the food court and queued up in front of the char siu fan place perhaps ten metres in front of his table, pretending not to see him, whilst he coughed into his ramen in a lame attempt to do the same to her. He told her this: I was going to ask you if you wanted to catch up sometime, after she’d sat herself down across from him, having brought her tray to his table, not quite cold, not quite warm, and asked if she could sit. She nodded accommodatingly now; then, what felt like out of nowhere: Don’t think I’ve ever gone even a year without seeing you.
Different lipstick, he noted, ignoring her, wondering if it was strange that he would notice such a thing, and remembering the time that he had gone with her into the drugstore near the library and she’d picked it up idly, her laughter echoing through the phone later that night. The colour’s too cool, she’d said, doesn’t suit me at all. He’d seen her around in the later weeks with a shade that suited her better; he remembered she’d said something about the blue tones and red tones making the colours look different on her skin. The once-new lipstick, now old, had rattled around in her bag long enough to become a distinct thing he associated with her. There she was, then, coat shucked off, applying lipstick in his mirror. Here she was, now, with her long felt coat and distant glance, the lines of her lips blurred at the edges.
He wondered what it would be like to have carved out a silhouette that people could recognise anywhere. He wanted to tell her something like I look for you at the bus stop sometimes.
Yeah, I’m trying something new, she said now, the old one ran out, so, you know. Nice to change up your look a bit sometimes.
You look good. It’s nice to see you.
A smile. You, too. Both, I mean.
Are you going to Robbie’s thing next week?
He watched as she mixed her rice around absently, gold bracelet dangling off her wrist. His ramen seemed suddenly unappealing. He wished he’d never bought it. I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve never really been to something like that before. I don’t want to be awkward.
What do you mean, you wouldn’t be, he said, and she laughed sunnily. A sort of smug feeling rose inside of him at the sound.
What are you talking about, I wouldn’t be, half the time you’re embarrassed to be seen with me!
He managed to hold her gaze for a second, the smug feeling spiralling somewhere deep in his stomach. He glanced down at his hands, less sickening, less filled with something he didn’t have the words for. Long fingers, piano hands, she used to say, play a song for me sometime, won’t you?
A month ago, they had sat like this, at the restaurant down the road from her flat. She had sipped the wine from his glass although she had her own, and he’d wanted to loop time so that he could live in that moment forever. She had stopped inviting him around by then; he’d lingered embarrassingly by her door as she smiled up at him, teasing him a little, and he hoped it would take her longer to say goodbye.
She smiled similarly at him now. Robbie said it should be fine, so. We’ll see. How’s your course, then?
Fine, yeah. Good.
That’s good. He thought back to when he and Mildred had run into her and Robbie for the first time, how awkward it had been. This was before she’d broken up with Robbie and he with Mildred and she rang him up, calling him a coward for not proposing when it was all Mildred ever talked about. You’re a real nowhere man, she’d laughed nastily, and he’d humoured her. Yeah, I guess that’s fair.
He didn’t know the name of the person she was seeing now. Kenneth or Kevin or some other K-name. He’s a bit boring, really. Nice enough to talk to, but oh my god, there is literally nothing worth remembering about him, Mildred had told him, without being asked, whilst Robbie put out a call for tea requests on his way to the kitchen. Do you ever think it’s weird? he’d asked when the four of them met up for drinks, five or six months post-breakups, and they had left Robbie and Mildred cosied up beside each other at the table whilst they loitered by the bar. A little awkward, maybe, she’d said, but they’re really lovely together. Come on, didn’t you see it coming?
He’d snorted. When we were together, you mean? Can’t say I was overly concerned with her and Robbie at the time. He was with you, for starters.
After that. She’d rolled her eyes. They’ve been getting closer for ages.
You mean bonding over their exes, yeah, that sounds like a good time.
Hey, I like Robbie. We’re friends. She threw a laugh over her shoulder at Robbie and Mildred. If they’re bonding over me, it’s how much they like me. They tell K— how lucky he is all the time. She had drunk from one of the beers they had yet to bring back to their table, then said abruptly: You never ask about my boyfriends.
Can’t say I’ve ever really been interested, to be honest.
She’d raised her eyebrows and sipped from another beer. It’s polite to show an interest in people’s lives.
Suppose I’m not polite, then. He’d shifted his arms on the counter and turned towards her, leaning closer. Stop doing that, he’d told himself. The thought of Robbie and Mildred hinting later that there might have been something between them at the bar had caused his neck to grow hot and his mood irritable. It’s not polite to drink from other people’s drinks.
Figured it was yours. You never care.
Why do you only talk to me when you want something off me, he’d wanted to ask. Instead: You know, you never ask me about my girlfriends.
I’m literally friends with Mildred, what do you mean?
Mildred and I aren’t together anymore. And I’m friends with Robbie, so moot point.
I don’t know. Don’t really care.
Impolite.
Guess so.
She’d stayed with him that night and sucked a bruise onto his shoulder. Everything I want in a relationship, he’d joked, and she’d slapped him across the arm and laughed, relationship, before moving off him and going to sleep in the spare room that he usually reserved for his school-aged brother when he visited. He’d walked her to the train station the morning after and asked, half-serious, about her staying awhile, and had gotten a wave over her shoulder in response as she boarded the train.
Why do you only notice me when you need something, he thought again now, wondering if she were really so indifferent. She slid the fortune cookie from the char siu fan place towards him over the canteen trays as he asked about her holiday, and he wanted not to hold her hand over the table but to have her in his life consistently.
He didn’t know what he had expected when she walked in. A week-old haircut, just enough time passed to look like herself again. The tilt of her chin. The red of her mouth. You look good, as he fumbled to keep up with her, a playful glance to the side, the crinkle of her eyes. I know I do. A version of her that would come to him in the dark if he wanted, would vanish like nothing if he told her to.
You’re a lot nicer in my head, he thought. Then, aloud, wondering if he really was embarrassed to be seen with her and ashamed at her having pointed it out: Sorry.
It’s fine, I don’t care. Her mouth twisted as if there were some sort of joke that he was unaware of, or worse, painfully in on, that she wanted to tell. Or, not enough, anyway.
They’d woken up together once, the curve of her hip fitted into his hand, his nose pressed into her neck, the happiest he’d ever been before he’d heard I don’t think we should do this anymore in the sound of his voice. She’d laughed, sitting up, duvet pooled around her and the colour kissed off her mouth—he had done that, he’d thought numbly—and said, what do you mean, anymore, we’ve only really done this once. Then, at something in his eyes, don’t worry about it, we’ll just forget it, yeah? He’d watched with bleary eyes as she walked the length of his bedroom, gathering up her clothes, her things, then turning absently. This was fun. He’d lain there afterwards, imagining the feel of her body next to his, her voice in his ear. How much he had wanted her to stay, or at the very least for her to say let’s do it again sometime.
A month later, during dinner over the kitchen island of her flat, he had snapped tiredly at her after she said something that he couldn’t even remember now. You’re a bit too much, you know that? She’d looked at him coldly. Been told, she’d replied, and in an effort to make it up to her, he’d said: You know, in school, I really fancied you. Did anything to make you laugh, it was so embarrassing. A glance in her direction. But, like, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything. Might be a bit awkward, if you know what I mean. He’d expected her to make a sex joke, right, yeah, that would be difficult to move past, or at least mock him a little—That’s embarrassing!—but instead she had said blandly: Why would I want to tell anyone about that?
The next night, whilst writing a paper in the dark of his own flat, he had opened up a new tab in the browser on his laptop and first typed why do i say things that i don’t mean, then replaced it with why can’t i be nice to my friend; then, in another tab, does my friend even actually like me. None of the responses had catered to his specific situation. He had given up and gone to bed.
In another world where things were clear, where he always knew what they were instead of only sometimes, he still wouldn’t have asked her out anywhere. It would be too embarrassing to lay himself bare in front of her in that way, to talk about something that didn’t seem necessary to say. It seemed too much to define, almost as if by really talking they would only carve out the space between them. In the other world, where he could see her without feeling embarrassed and she never pretended not to know him, perhaps there could be some sort of middle ground to be found. For all the moments they didn’t click, there were a few shining ones in which they did, and he found himself longing for life to always feel as comfortable as it did when everything between them connected perfectly.
He thought, sometimes, that some part of him would always search for her, and perhaps she for him. That he could be walking through the city eating a sandwich between work hours in a future where he had an actual career and see her face in a passing bus. Maybe a car, if she’d moved someplace more driveable. She could be next in the queue in the shop where he currently worked retail and step up to the till. I’d like to return this, please, she’d say, her voice not any surprise to him because, he thought, where would either of them go? She could be grey and walking out of the salon after a perm and he, across the street, a little shorter, a little less hair, would think, oh, it’s you.
He looked at her now, hair fanned across her shoulders, in the midst of a story involving a group project with five others, her free hand gesturing as if to say you get what I mean.
I love you, you know.
She smiled, confused, because of course. I know. You, too.