I'll Be Here

small wart that has blossomed on his right thumb just below the nail.  As a rule, warts are not sexy. 
    Dustin dusts salt off the table before leaning forward and speaking quietly.  “I thought you knew.” 
    God, he says it almost accusingly and I have to bite my lip to keep from reacting.  His hair is caught in the collar of his shirt.  Instinctively I reach out to fix it and then I stop myself, pulling back my fingers.  Remember that’s not your job anymore.
    I want to tell him that he’s wrong.  I want to say that I didn’t know—that I had no clue.  I want to say that my insides are buried beneath an avalanche of giant boulders and we need to organize a search party.  I want to flop full-bodied on the floor and sob my heart out.  I want to scream.  I want to shout something big.  Something huge.  Something earth shattering. 
    But I don’t. 
    I don’t sob or scream or say anything at all.  I just stare ahead and I’m sure that my face is wearing forty-five different emotions and that Dustin is flipping through the archives in his mind trying to decipher all of them.  He laughs nervously as he picks up his fork and takes a stab of steak.  This boy—my ex- boyfriend—orders his meat medium rare and I watch red juices squish through the spaces between his white teeth as he chews.
    Another deep breath.  I let the air settle into my lungs before blowing it out. 
    Okay . 
    I’m better. 
    This is where I’m supposed to talk, right?  That’s what a normal girl would do.  You’re anything but normal, mom is always telling me.  You’re not an average teenage girl.  You just like to pretend sometimes, she’ll say with a quick squeeze above my wrist and a quirk to her smile that hints at pride.  As if telling me that I’m abnormal is a compliment.
    Finally, I manage to make my mouth work. “Let me get this straight…”  My voice sounds all wrong—weak and scratchy like I’m covering my mouth with my hand.  I grip the edge of the booth to keep from tipping over.  “You brought me to a steak house to break up with me?” 
    This surprises him. 
    Of all the things he was expecting me to say after he finished his little speech on growing apart and college and the bigger picture, I can tell that this was not it.  His hazel eyes widen in confusion and I have to remind myself that I don’t want to look there.  I shift my gaze to his earlobe.  For some reason it’s so much paler than the rest of him.  Until this moment I never noticed how long Dustin’s earlobes are.  They look like soggy wads of toilet paper.
    “What do you mean?”  He asks and swallows a lump of meat and pulls his drink to his lips.   
    I place my forearms on the edge of the table and lean forward.  My hair falls over my shoulder. 
    “I’m asking if you knew that you were going to break up with me before you brought me here,” I gesture absently to our surroundings, “to this steak house.”
    Dustin’s upper body mirrors mine. He slides forward in his seat, his elbows propped on either side of his white plate.  His face is a vacant playground.  His eyes are two dangling tire swings.  His nose is a slide.  His mouth—the seesaw. 
    He holds his knife and fork five inches off the table.  I can smell the musky cologne he’s wearing.  It’s the one I bought him last Christmas.  I spent an hour at the tester counter and my entire paycheck on it.  My nostrils flare as if pissed off at the memory. 
    “Well… yeah.  But I don’t really see your point Willow. ”
    “My point, Dustin, is that I’m a goddamn vegetarian.”
    ***
    The drive home is predictably awkward.  Tucked into the passenger seat, I’m silent but not necessarily sullen.  I stare out the car window and let the familiarity of the sights calm me. 
    There’s a certainty about it all. 
    George’s Bait and Tackle shop on the corner of Northside Boulevard and White Shell Drive.  The Quick Mart where you can get a pack of Rolos and a blue raspberry Icee twenty-four hours a day.  Helen Dilken’s flower shop that smells like adoration.  The army recruitment office with its red awning and bright white lettering.  The sandwich shop where I lost my first tooth in the tough center of a sourdough roll. 
    Cool links of the silver bracelet that Dustin gave me for my birthday slide between my fingers.  It’s engraved in French.  When he gave it to me last year it seemed positively romantic.  Now I realize that it