The Person You Choose
Ate standing, leaning against the counter, the way people do when they don't trust chairs.
"She's not okay," he said. "She's performing. Same as you. Same as everyone."
"I'm not performing."
He looked at me. Didn't argue. Just looked, the way he looked at everything—like he was reading something I hadn't written yet.
After, he drove. Windows down, August heat thick as syrup. I watched the town wake—storefronts opening, buses exhaling steam, kids walking in clusters already known to each other.
"Why teach me?" I asked, after he demonstrated the code on the steering wheel—jab-cross-hook, uppercut, roll.
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