Page 113 of Brain Damage

“It really is,” Jamie says, scooping up the check before Brigid or I can even reach for it. “We should do it again sometime.”

“Absolutely,” Brigid says enthusiastically.

They both look at me. I shrug. “Sure.”

I can tell Jamie is hurt by my lukewarm reaction. I want to smack myself in the head. Why am I so scared of letting him know how I feel?

Maybe because I’m scared that he’s moved on.

Jamie takes care of our bill, just as both kids start complaining that they need to use the bathroom.

“I’ll tell you what,” Brigid says, “Why don’t you let me take the kids to the bathroom and you two go ahead and wait outside?”

I know what Brigid is trying to do, and I sort of hate her for it. What does she think is going to happen exactly? And anyway, I don’t want to be alone with Jamie.

“Sure,” Jamie says. “Thanks, Brigid.”

I grab for my cane. For a moment, I feel self-conscious about my walking, but then I remember that Jamie was around when I was much worse than I am now. Still, I have to pay extra attention to everything I’m doing, so as not to walk into a wall. Not that I usually walk into walls, but it seems like something I could definitely do right now.

When we get outside, it seems like the temperature has dropped several degrees. I feel myself shiver. Jamie keeps looking at me, wringing his hands together. Finally, I hear him take a deep breath.

“Look, I have to be honest,” he says. Uh oh. No great sentence ever started that way. “This isn’t a coincidence or anything. Running into you here, that is.”

“Oh?” I say.

“I, uh, I came here to find you.”

“Oh,” I say again. I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re at least an hour subway ride away from where Jamie lives.

“We were standing in front of your building for like an hour, waiting for you to come out.” He grins sheepishly. “I had to bribe Sam with candy in order to make him wait.”

“You could’ve been waiting a long time,” I point out.

He nods in acknowledgment. “I know. I probably shouldn’t have brought Sam, but I figured if I was with him, you wouldn’t refuse to talk to me.”

“Why would I refuse to talk to you?”

He raises his eyebrows at me. “You don’t remember our last conversation? Where I told you that I loved you, and you told me to get lost?”

“I don’t think I was that mean.”

“No,” he admits. “You were actually really nice about it. But that was the basic idea.”

He’s looking at me really intently. It’s making me feel breathless. “It was for your own good, you know.”

“Was it?” He rakes his hand nervously through his hair, making it stick up a bit. I wonder if he can feel the scar when he does that. I wonder if it still itches the way mine does. “The thing is, maybe you think it was for my own good, but the reality is, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all year. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t wonder what you’re doing and wish I could see you. It’s really distracting, actually.”

A long silence passes between us. I don’t know what to say. I want to tell him that I’ve been thinking about him too, all the freaking time, but I’m still not sure if that’s the right thing to do. We both have so many of our own issues. The two of us together would be a disaster.

At least, I think it would be. It could be. Or it could be great.

I can see that Jamie is getting more and more anxious the longer that I’m silent. Finally, he blurts out, “Have you thought about me at all?”

How could he ask me that? He was my best friend in rehab. He stood up to Clark and saved my life. Does he think I’m some sort of unfeeling robot?

“Of course I have!” I retort. “I think about you all the time! Every day, I…”

And then I catch myself, blushing. I’ve said too much.