Is it wrong that his scoffing nonreply isn’t exactly music to my ears? I mean, I don’t want him to think he has even the slightest chance with me, but come on, give a discarded girl a break!
‘I will tell you this. I looked for you after seeing you in the office your first day. But Remy found you first.’ Much earlier than you think, I almost say. ‘This complicates things too much for me. But perhaps we can be friends.’
Is it a line or the truth? Who the hell knows. It’ll be some time before I can trust myself again.
‘Café?’ Ben asks me as the waiter approaches the table once more.
‘What did I tell you about coffee, Benny?’ One eye closed, I try to focus on the man in front of me.
‘That it does not help heartache,’ he says with a wince. I think it’s the name I’ve christened him with rather than his fear of catching feelings.
‘What else?’
‘Tequila does. But this is too much.’ He gestures to the scarred wooden table between us, littered with tiny shot glasses and my abandoned lunch. I’ve stacked some of the glasses into towers and placed a napkin over the sandwich because the smell of the accompanying fries made me feel ill.
If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll never eat a fry again.
‘Hey, you helped,’ I protest, sitting straighter. Whoa. Woozy head. And a flat butt and sore back after sitting on this damned bistro chair for too many hours.
‘What do you want?’ he asks again.
To be loved. To be held. For Remy’s head to explode. Any of those. Instead, I order the damned café. ‘With milk. And sugar. And in a big mug,’ I call as the waiter withdraws. ‘Oh, dear god. I feel so messy right now.’ Too much tequila and heartbreak will do that to a girl.
‘You look fine,’ Ben answers, though he’s not looking at me but studying his glass of wine. Probably regretting he said he’d bring me to this café, the kind that has penny-sized tables and spindly chairs that look like they might break at any minute and waiters who’ve taken classes in Gallic-style insolence.
‘Sure, that’s the kind of compliment I need.’ The apathetic kind. The uninterested kind. This Ben is different from Saturday Ben, but that doesn’t mean I trust him; mood-altering substances or not. It just means he’s the only one in this country I can talk to about this. Which also means he’s also one of the few who know I’ve made such a fool of myself. I can take some solace in this, I guess. When I get to that point. But whatever, it’s kind of convenient that he isn’t interested in me, or else I might be feeling spurned for a second time in one day.
‘We have decided to be friends, no?’
‘No. I mean, yeah. I suppose.’ But the friend I need is currently on the other side of the globe. Unlike Benny, Amber would know what to say. We’d probably be at Remy’s apartment, cutting the sleeves off his shirts and shoving shrimp into the hem of his drapes. We’d be singing Lily Allen at the top of our lung, fuck you very much, then she’d get me so drunk that I couldn’t possibly feel sad any more, before holding my hair and wiping my tears while I puked, trying to purge him from my system.
‘At least you’re fulfilling the drink part of this,’ I mutter, pushing away the shot glasses to make space for my mug as the waiter returns. ‘When life gives you lemons, break out the tequila.’
He turns a little in his seat, crossing one leg over the other before picking a little invisible fluff from the knee of his pants. ‘Ask me about him,’ he murmurs without looking my way. ‘I know you want to.’
‘Fuck him. He’s an asshole.’ A traitorous, treacherous, heartbreaking bastard and I never want to hear from him again. Except, I want to hear all the things. About his past, his relationship so I can slot away the tiny details to obsess over later, to torture myself. But I won’t ask because I’m not sure I can keep the desperate hope from my tone.
‘Yes, and asshole. But not as bad as you think.’ I think we’re having a staring competition until he blinks.
‘You don’t even like him.’ That much was clear in Remy’s office.
‘He’s family.’ He shrugs as though this is explanation enough, but then he smiles the kind of