I looked at my watch. It had stopped at exactly 10:30 that morning, but I kept checking it throughout the day in the hope its hands had somehow regained consciousness. They hadn’t, and my tardiness was evident of that. It didn’t matter, though. I just know she would be there, sitting in the same booth she usually does with her head cocked downward staring boundlessly at the menu. I peered through the thick glass panels of a shitty restaurant only to see the deep, inset wrinkles of waitresses, and a man sitting alone at a booth. (The feeling of isolation was so palpable that I could reach out and clench its unsightly head.) I briskly pushed the door open only to be filled with enough apprehension to last three and a half lifetimes. “She has to be in here,” I reassured myself. I scoured the joint like a curious critter hoping to find a place to finally rest, but instead I only found empty tables littered with half-used sugar packets, lipstick-stained coffee cups, and two-dollar tips. I chastised myself for being so foolish, and for thinking that she would wait for me to say it. The universe was having a big laugh, no doubt. Hell, it even seemed like those little containers of creamer were tittering in my direction.
I pulled my wrist close to my eyes; the watch read 10:33.
(adrian rojas)
