Fickle

-by Beau Burriola

10 mins.... 15 mins...

*sigh*

Why do I wait for him like this? I already know how this conversation will go.

The busy sound of diner china and silverware hitting cheap tables through bustling conversation surrounded me. The smell of bacon, pancakes, and cheap coffee filled the air. I sat alone at a booth, huffing.

*sigh*

20 mins... 25 mins...

I should just leave. If I thought he weren't coming I would have, but he's nearly always late. Maybe next time I should be an hour late just to meet him on time.

"You'll never believe what happed..." he finally shouted at me from the open door of the busy diner, pausing in that graceful and tragic way he does before floating across the room to the booth in front of me. He sat with a dramatic thud, hands clasped in pure bliss. I was already annoyed with him for being thirty minutes late, and his ever-so-grand entrance wasn't helping my mood.

"I'm in love," he began on his newest story about some boy he'd met at the Laundromat. "It's the classic love tale isn't it? Meeting a boy in a Laundromat? It's like a music video..."

There are times in life when Evil Beau Brent takes over. Before I could stop myself, the frustration boiled up and out my ears, spilling over into an ice cold stare and the beginning of a big tantrum. I grabbed a handful of sugar packets to squeeze in my hands.

"NO. We aren't going to do this again," I said calmly, glaring at him. His look indicated that he was perhaps looking through me, or above me, but not directly at me. I twisted the sugar packets.

"Every week you do this- every week it's some new boy you meet, you go all crazy over, you give me the 'I'm in Love' monologue while you skip around town doing cartwheels for a week. THEN you get BORED or TIRED or distracted and you find all of these terrible ways to end it." The only time I have a Texas twang is when I'm angry, and I could feel it all coming back.

THEN you cry for days and days, watching depressing movies like Beaches or the First Wives Club, and just when the weekend is nearly over you come skipping in THIRTY MINUTES LATE to plop down on the chair without so much as a hello and tell me with a straight face THAT YOU ARE IN LOVE?!"

I could tell my voice was rising, as other folks in the diner were starting to turn with curious stares. I didn't care. It had to be said, and if the universe wanted an audience to increase my tantrum's effectiveness, so be it.

"Every time you enter a relationship all giddy, letting some boy think that you want to be with him forever and then you go and do something to screw all that up. With Billy and Tom, you cheated on them. With Timothy you almost did, but he caught you. With Louis- THAT was a mess I don't even want to talk about- and EVERY TIME I have to spend two days putting you back together again, and it's wearing me OUT."

As if to illustrate this point, I tore at the sugar packets in my hand, causing sugar to fly in all directions on the table and on my lap. In spite of the sugar shower I charged bravely on through my monologue, ignoring the people and the place.

"Well I WON’T do it again!" There were now quite a few people around us and the conversation had died considerably.

I looked down at the sugary mess in front of me waiting for him to react. Maybe I'd gone overboard; said too much at once? When I looked up I noticed him seeming neither surprised nor even slightly affected by my outburst.

With his usual grace, he unclasped his hands, let out a sigh and looked me in the eyes. A grin slowly crept on his face.

"... so wait till you hear how I met him. I know this one was meant to happen..."

And I sat beating my head against the table as he spoke, leaving clumps and imprints of sugar on my face.