We said goodnight on the pavement outside the restaurant, the four of us, Ethan already
mid-sentence about the dessert menu’s structural limitations as a concept, Noah listening
with the focused attention he brings to everything Ethan says even when he is pretending
not to. The boys got into Adrian’s car because Adrian had offered to drop them both and
it was on his way, and I stood on the pavement and watched the car pull away into the
dark and thought about Ethan’s face across the corner of the table when he had said
whatever it is you keep not saying.
I went home.
I made tea. I sat at the kitchen table with it and looked at the city outside the window and
thought about the evening. About the four of us on the pavement beforehand, the cold air,
the specific ordinary extraordina
