Mouthful

by Hadassah Williams 

He wants to talk, so you offer to drive. At least this gives you something to do with your hands as you don't know what they'll do if they remain idle. If all at once you remember everything, and slap him open-palmed across his face. Or worse, you forget, and run your fingers along his jaw, letting them linger in the small dent behind his ear. 

Maybe if you had eaten he and his text messages would have remained unanswered. You wouldn't have felt the need to be filled by just anything. You would have headed home to greet tomorrow's sunrise in your own bed, satiated, satisfied; instead of now squinting at the afternoon sun, stuck next to him in traffic on Wrightson Road. 

When you realised that you could no longer summon his face at will, you took this as a sign that you were over him. Now, you are incapable of taking him in all at once. You have to look at him, sideways, slowly allowing his features to fill in the shape he left behind in your mind. You are relieved that you still find him attractive, this bearded, brown-skinned, slim-fit shirt wearing professional. His presence is now somehow justified. 

Unable to register the fullness of the sentences coming from his mouth, his voice ricochets in your head. Phrases like: "Thanks for”, “I hope that”, “Sorry about”, “I didn't mean to," reach your ear. He hasn't stopped talking since you said "Hello" but he hasn't said anything about where he wants to go. With no destination you understand that you have to decide where you both will end up. 

This was not what you had imagined when you read his text about wanting to start over. After all, if that was what he really wanted, he could have simply taken you back to the beginning. Just like your first date - you were hungry then too - where you forced yourself to take dainty bites from the basket of fries as the sun slipped into the Gulf dragging the red-orange sky behind it. You washed his words down with cocktails and red wine, taking your last bite long after the sky faded from indigo to black. The burger remained untouched until the next day. 

Ahead are two boys brandishing squeegees and buckets wefting through the traffic. The one who can't be any more than sixteen walks towards the car, and before you can smile and nod as you usually do, he reaches over, lowers the window and says to the boy: "Nothing today soldier." The scent of his cologne invades your nose and the air vents - the recycled scent of him will linger for days – and both you and the boy look at each other, his eyes narrowed, yours wide. The boy relents, leaving behind the wet outline of a heart at the bottom of the windscreen before walking away. You run your tongue on the edge of an argument but instead retreat behind your teeth.

"You have every right to be", "I was thinking that maybe", "What do you think?" You still can hear only the opening words of his sentences. His tone is familiar, there is none of the expected awkwardness, or embarrassment, nothing for you to use to your advantage. 

"I missed you." Here is where you stop listening. 

*

Now that school has reopened the traffic these days is much worse. His tie is draped across the laptop bag on the backseat. You've been sitting in the passenger seat, for how long now? Three days? Three months? Three years? It's only a few minutes past six and it's already dark. You can't remember, switching seats, switching cars, deciding or agreeing to anything. Flexing your fingers you are relieved to see that they remain bare, that you've made no promises. He reaches for your hand and holds it in his lap. Finally, he has stopped talking. But 

now you are starving. 

"I'm hungry." It has been so long since you've said anything that at first you don't recognise the sound of your voice..

"I want something to eat," you say again, pointing to the gyro cart on the corner. He reminds you about the dinner that you're both attending. 

"We're already late, can't you wait?” he asks. 

But you know now that it is always worse if you wait until you get home. He only pulls to the side when he sees you fumbling with the door, about to open it into the oncoming traffic. You slip out of the car, and cross the street without looking, without listening. Walking back to the gyro cart your dress keeps getting caught beneath your heels until you ball the fabric into your fist. Breathless, you enter the sharp white halo from the cart's fluorescent lights. The vendor looks uncertain when you, in your sequined dress points to the rack of meat spinning slowly behind him. 

"One lamb gyro, all the veggies, slight pepper," you insist. 

His partner is already shaving slices of meat for the grill. Appeased you watch the meat curl in on itself, the scent filling your nose. The white wrap lies open, waiting, covered with lettuce, sweet peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers. You smile, teeth bared when you see the meat, well done, placed gently on the bed of vegetables. 

"Ketchup, garlic sauce?" the vendor asks. 

"Slight pepper," you remind him. 

He appears beside you without his jacket annoyed. $45 you tell him. He hands over a hundred dollar bill from his wallet. You both silently watch the man wrap the gyro tightly in foil with deft movements before he rolls it on the grill one last time. Smiling, the vendor hands it to you, upright like a bouquet of flowers.

Together you both make your way back to the car. You drift away from his side until you are behind him. Tearing off the foil you sink your teeth into the gyro, the taste of the meat between your teeth brings you back to yourself. This will be the last time you'll ever go anywhere on an empty stomach. You swallow and bite down again.