More Happy Than Not

My swollen eye is less swollen, but it’s still pretty much an eyesore everyone can’t help but stare at when I’m just walking down the street. “Yeah. I ran into a lot of wrong fists. How’d you find out?”

“Genevieve told a friend who told a friend who told Nicole,” Collin says. “What else is new?” He picks up the menu as if he doesn’t always order the same thing—omelet with a side of hash browns—and it’s a good tactic; I’ll give him that. Focus on what’s new and what’s next instead of what brought him here. “Hey! Can I get some coffee over h

ere?”

“Make that two!”

“Why do you need two?” Collin asks.

“I downed mine already.”

Collin points at the steaming mug in front of me. I could’ve sworn I drank mine already, especially because of how badly I have to pee now. Maybe the waiter refilled it while I was lost in my head.

The waiter looks confused too. And a little annoyed as he brings two steaming mugs. “What the . . . ? You still haven’t finished the second cup.”

“Uh, no. Sorry about that.”

“Great. I’ll just make another batch for the next time you want to waste some more.”

Collin pours sugar into his coffee and tells the waiter, “Don’t be a dick, dick.” The waiter curses under his breath and leaves. Collin always used to tell off the asshole waiters who never hang around Java Jack’s longer than a month. It started a game where I would draw something crude on the bill to make him laugh. Becoming that person again would be cold and distant, but safe.

“So you were about to tell me what’s new with you,” he says.

“Nothing besides getting thrown through doors.”

He stares at his coffee. “Where was Genevieve when all this went down?”

“I kind of quit her.” I lock eyes with him when he looks up. “What’s going on with you and Nicole? How’s her pregnancy coming along?”

Collin covers his mouth, coffee dribbling down his chin. “Uh, she’s about to enter her third trimester.”

“Boy or girl?”

He takes a second to answer. “Boy.”

Now would be a good time to have a fully functioning crystal ball so I could divine whether or not Collin is going to be a good father to his little boy. I don’t just mean whether or not he’ll take his son out to play and feed him spoonfuls of medicine when he’s sick, but if Collin will let his son listen to songs sung by women and let him date a dude if it made him happy.

“Congratulations,” I say.

“I know you don’t mean it.”

“No, I think it’s cool,” I lie.

“That sucks about you and Genevieve.”

“I know you don’t mean it,” I parrot with a grin.

Then we just look at each other, the same way we did during school when we passed each other in the halls. “Want to get out of here?”

“Let’s get the check,” I say.

“And the waiter’s pen,” he adds.

We’re going to Comic Book Asylum, laughing as we throw the waiter’s pen at each other, overdramatic, like gladiators hurling spears. After we started hanging out last year, we would go to the comic shop when it was too cold out to do anything else. It didn’t matter to me as long as we were chilling. We’d spend hours sitting in the aisles, as close to each other as possible, checking out what we wanted to read but were positive we didn’t want to buy. Man, I spent so much time at Comic Book Asylum that Genevieve brought me there for Trade Dates. Then again, she also created Trade Dates because there was a strain in our relationship, also because of Collin.

He always surprised me whenever he brought up things that weren’t related to comics and fantasy books. One afternoon I thought we were about to leave the shop, but he pulled me back down to the floor beside him. I was both nervous and hopeful he was going to kiss me, but instead he said he was done caring about what others thought of how he lived. That sentiment didn’t survive any longer than a shadow-basilisk did against a black sun phoenix, but in the moment it made me happy to believe it. And then I lost him and his conversations and touches, and I couldn’t fill that hole. So forgetting the hole was even there turned out to be the next best, saddest thing.

But I have him back now, I think.