Olive Juice

Phillip frowned at him. “Is there something wrong with—”

“No!” he said quickly. “No, no. I’m fine. I had a checkup a few months ago and my blood pressure is a little high, but everything is fine. Healthy as a middle-aged horse. I even ran! On a treadmill!”

“Really.” Phillip sounded dubious.

“I did,” David insisted. “I can get up to three miles now.”

“You’re too skinny.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I’ve always been skinny. You haven’t been. You were always a big guy. That was your thing.”

“Well, I used to have all my hair, too, but you can see how well that’s going.”

“You look nice.”

He snorted. “Thanks.”

“I mean it. I’m—I’m happy. That you’re okay.”

David didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to go there right now. Maybe ever. It wasn’t healthy, sure, to ignore it for as long as he could. But to acknowledge it made it real, and this was already the realest conversation he’d had in years. He was doing okay so far, but he didn’t want to push it.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” he said rather stiffly.

“You know I do, anyway. I always do.”

God, how he ached. How he wanted to tear into Phillip and say, Really? You really worry about me? Where have you been, then? Why haven’t you called me even though you knew I wouldn’t have picked up? Why haven’t you sent me a text message I could ignore? Why are we here? Why did I agree to this? Why aren’t you hurting as much as I am? Why didn’t you care as much as I did?

It was that last one made him the most bitter.

It’d been the one that he’d spat at Phillip on that last dark day.

He’d been breathing heavily, unsure exactly of what he’d just said, but hearing his words echo around the room. He’d watched as they’d struck Phillip like a physical blow, his eyes widening, his breath hitching in his chest. And he couldn’t take them back, no matter how much he’d wanted to. He’d said what he’d been thinking, unfiltered and harsh, because even if he hadn’t believed it, he’d thought it, and wasn’t that close enough? Wasn’t that just enough to fucking crack Phillip right down the middle? In all the years that David had known Phillip Greengrass, from that awkward first meeting in an apartment hallway to the day they’d been admonished by Alice for being late to the wedding, to March 22, 2012, to that moment, that moment when he’d screamed at Phillip, “Why don’t you care as much as I do?”

About her.

It hadn’t been said, but it might as well have.

Why don’t you care as much about her as I do?

That’d been it.

There’d been no coming back after that.

Everything that had been held together by

tenuous hope and duct tape since that phone call on that March afternoon had fallen apart around them, leaving nothing but rubble at their feet, and that had been David’s fault. David had been to blame for that.

He’d known it even then.

He knew it even now.

Melissa appeared at their table, two large plates in her hands. She set Phillip’s down before him first and then moved to the other side of the table. “Here we are,” she said. “My, do those look delicious. You know, I had this very same thing just the other week, and you gentlemen are in for a treat. The plates might be a little warm, so please be careful. Is there anything else I can get for you at the moment?”

David thought, A do-over.

Phillip said, “No, this all looks fine. Just fine.”