Page 66 of Glass Half Full
“Honey.” Stella reaches across the table to place her hand on my forearm and gives me one of her sweetest Stella smiles. “Cut the bullshit.”
They’re not going to let this go. I drop my head into my hands and groan.
“Oh, boy’s got it bad,” Owen taunts.
“So bad,” Stella agrees. “Tell us everything.”
“You two are impossible.”
I shift forward in my seat so I can stretch my hands behind my back as I figure out where to even start with this story.
“You know how sometimes you just...you just connect with someone? It’s like you’re standing in a packed metro car, and all of a sudden you look up and lock eyes with someone, and you can’t look away. You know you’re being crazy. You know there are so many reasons you should just drop your eyes back to the floor and keep waiting for your stop, but you justcan’tlook away, like this person who was a stranger to you just seconds ago is somehow tied to you now, like you’re linked. There’s this...connection, and no matter how much you know you should, you can’t break it. You don’t even want to.”
The two of them blink at me. Stella’s jaw has actually fallen open.
“I can’t tell if this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me or if I’m just setting my own life on fire.”
The words I haven’t been able to admit to myself, the doubt I’ve been trying to swallow down for so long, pours out in front of my friends. They’ve heard some of the most honest things I’ve ever said through my poetry, and I guess somewhere inside me, I know I can trust them now.
“Do you guys remember Renee Nyobé?”
“Oh my god, it’s Renee?” Stella’s whole face lights up. “I love Renee!”
“Yeah, she helped pick your cat gifts, actually.”
“Oh my god, I love her even more!”
“Didn’t she leave?” Owen asks. “She hasn’t been around the scene for years.”
“She was at school in England. I hadn’t seen her in years either, not until she walked into Taverne Toulouse looking for a job.”
“That’s so romantic!” Stella’s got huge puppy dog eyes going on now.
Owen takes a slightly more practical stance. “So you’re...her boss?”
I drop my head in my hands again. “Yeah, remember the part about setting my own life on fire?”
“I just, uh, want to get the whole picture here,” Owen continues. “How old is she?”
“Owen!” I look up just in time to see Stella smack him—except it’s Stella, so it’s more of a gentle tap. “They are in love! Don’t be such a Debbie Downer.”
“No one under forty says ‘Debbie Downer,’” he replies.
“No one under eighty wears hats like that,” she shoots back. “Now, Dylan, tell us more about how you fell in love with your young employee.”
I grimace. “Do you really have to say it like that, Stella?”
“How young?” Owen urges.
I suck in a breath. “Twenty-one.”
I wait for them to condemn me, but they both just look pensive for a moment.
“That’s not so bad,” Stella muses.
“Yeah,” Owen agrees, “I’ve definitely heard of worse.”
“Oh great, I’m on the scale of bad to worse now. This is fucking great. I’mthatguy, aren’t I? God, I tried so hard to tell myself I wasn’t, but fuck, I am. I’m that guy.”
