Page 9 of In a Haze

“Her name’s Sharon.”

“Oh. I don’t know why, but she makes me really uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, I get that. She’s got a hard-on for you.”

I feel my cheeks turn pink, because I know what that word means,hard-on, but I’m not thinking of Sharon then.

Maybe sensing my discomfort, he says, “Well, you know what I mean. She’s obsessed with you.”

“But why?”

“Mystery of the universe. Anyway, are you hungry? Ready for lunch?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Pizza today.”

I think I like pizza. “Oh, good.”

“How has your day been so far?” he asks as I stand up.

“Really strange. Some guy in scrubs yelled at me for peeking through a window on a locked door.”

“Power trip bullshit.”

Now we’re out in the hallway and I try to remove emotion and expression from my face—but Joe keeps talking, making that difficult.

“I gotta tell you, Anna, it’s nice to have you with me, if that makes sense. I knew there had to be a way to coax you out of there.”

What was I like before that he had tocoax me out? Do I even want to know more than he’s already revealed?

“I just wish you could tell me about yourself before you got here.”

“You and me both.” I notice someone down the hall staring at me, and I hope it’s not because he caught me actually talking. Lots of people here stare, so I don’t take it personally, but this time I wonder if I’ve given myself away.

Shifting my eyes back to the tiles in the floor, I continue walking beside Joe at a turtle’s pace, hoping that if I immediately act the way I’m supposed to, I’ll deflect suspicion. I know that Joe gets it, but I don’t know if that’s why he stops talking while we head toward the cafeteria or if he’s realizing he needs to chill a little, too. But the man has so much energy, I can’t imagine he was ever subdued.

His enthusiasm is one of the things I really like about him. And it’s contagious—meaning I need to double down in my efforts to stay calm.

When we arrive at the cafeteria, the line is short but most of the tables are full. I’ll admit it does smell really good. While it’s not like standing outside a pizzeria and finding yourself drawn in by the scents wafting out onto the sidewalk, there’s no mistaking the hint of garlic and basil lingering in the air.

After we get our trays of food, we turn around to survey the landscape. I see that we’re going to have to sit with other people, like it or not, because I’m pretty sure food’s not allowed out of the area. “Follow me,” Joe says and begins walking toward the back of the room.

We wind our way among the sea of round tables, and I do see some people engaged in conversation, meaning they’re not all so drugged out of their minds that they can’t talk. But I can’t allow that to stop me from acting that way myself. Eventually, near the very back, Joe points out a table with two people seated next to each other. If I have to guess, they look like they might even be friends, even though they don’t appear to be talking to each other. It’s how comfortable they look next to one another, especially because they don’t feel like they have to make small talk.

But I suppose those types of conventions don’t hold in a place like this anyway.

The man is heavyset with dark hair that looks like it hasn’t been washed in a week. It doesn’t necessarily appear dirty, just uncared for, neglected, but it’s pulled back in a ponytail. The woman appears to be really young, like barely twenty, if that, and withdrawn. She wears her wispy light brown hair like a mask, letting it hang in her eyes. It turns pink for the last inch or so, an old dye that hasn’t quite grown out yet.

As soon as we sit down, the man stops talking, although he mutters once in a while. The young woman doesn’t look like she was speaking before we arrived, but she makes noises every now and then, something it seems she can’t prevent herself from doing.

My mouth has been watering, so I pick up the slice of pizza and take a rather large bite. As soon as I’ve swallowed it, I say quietly, “So I don’t remember ever actually eating pizza, but something tells me this is a poor excuse. I’m pretty sure the crust shouldn’t have such a cardboardy texture.”

“Yeah, well, but it’s better than gruel.”

The other man mutters and nods while the woman picks an invisible bug out of her hair and seems to consider eating it for a microsecond. I also can’t help but agree, so I nod and take another bite before moving on to my salad.

After a little while, the man starts putting all his empty dishes and silverware back on the tray. Looking up at me, we make eye contact while he says, “I didn’t know you talked.”

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