Page 199 of Offside
“Yeah,” I said again. I looked down at my hands and used one finger to smear around a missed droplet of water. After a minute, when he hadn’t said anything else, I looked back at him.
He was, for lack of a better term, shaking. He was taking in deep breaths—like I sometimes do to calm myself—but then as he let them out, his whole body shook with the effort.
“Are you okay?” I asked quietly.
“Yes,” he breathed and then quickly changed his mind. “No! Shit! I have to get out of here…”
He stood up and slammed his legs into the bottom of the table, which knocked over my water and brought forth some more cursing. I might have found it funny, except for what he had said.
He had to get out.
Get away from me.
I felt my shoulders slump as my body tensed up.
“Shit! Thomas…I just…I didn’t mean…fuck!”
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
“No! I didn’t mean…I just need to get outside a minute…um…to smoke? I really need a cigarette right now.”
“Oh,” I said as I glanced up at him. He was pulling a pack out of his pocket. “Okay.”
I looked down at our plates, both really about as untouched as they could be, and didn’t really feel like eating anything.
“You had enough of this place?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Come outside with me?”
“Yeah.”
He shuffled around until he was out of the booth and then stood there for a second with his hand in his hair.
“Do you, um…need some help? I could push you…”
“No, I got it.”
He followed me as I made my way around the other tables, trying to ignore the stares. I wasn’t sure if my perception was accurate, but I felt as if they all knew exactly who I was. All the people there knew what I used to be.
Gardner ran around me to open the door. Once we were outside, he lit up.
“Do you…um…smoke?”
“Nah,” I replied. “I used to, sometimes. Nicole would kill me.”
“Gotcha.” He took a long drag and started to pace a little. “I didn’t…I…shit.”
I kept looking down at my hands. Eventually he stopped in front of me and bent at the knees so he could look up at me.
“Thomas…I had no idea.”
I shrugged.
“No one did,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not!” he said then sighed and ran his free hand through his hair again. “I should have…I should have pushed. I should have just come here. I wanted to—I did. I was just…Shit, Thomas! I was scared. I was such a pussy about all of it. I didn’t even know about you, and then what he said—it made sense…at the time. Now…now…shit!”
