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Rachel
It was JoJo who kept me at the table.
She threatened me with rainbow-coloured fur handcuffs if I tried to get up “one more goddamn time”. She was just crazy enough for me to believe that she had indeed packed such a thing into the tie-dye knapsack hanging from the post of the completely mismatched chair.
JoJo had a glass of water with lemon in front of her. I’d splurged on a coffee.
Leaning forward, JoJo whispered, looking around her, “People keep giving me funny looks.”
I laughed a little as I played with a packet of sugar, spinning it this way and that on the modern concrete table.
“Maybe because we’re in one of the nicest restaurants in the Financial District at lunchtime and you’re wearing an upside-down bikini top,” I told her.
She tucked her chin into her chest to examine her mostly naked torso.
“But I wore a tie,” she protested, flitting a red silk tie back and forth with a grin.
I smiled back, but then butterflies twisted in my stomach and my toe started tapping erratically on the marble floor.
“Look,” I said, “we can just go. It’s awkward and we’re underdressed and—”
“I will tie you to the chair with this tie if you even think of standing up, Rach,” JoJo interrupted.
Her petite hands went to the knot at her throat and she lifted a go on, dare me to eyebrow at me. I sighed and stole a sip of her water.
“This is what you’ve been wanting,” JoJo reminded me. “All you’ve been going on and on about all these weeks on my couch is getting a chance to talk to Tim. Well, here you are. And now you want to bail? What is it with you and avoiding the fucking truth?”
That last part stung. My gaze fell to the swirl of milk in my overpriced cup of coffee.
JoJo’s toe wiggled against mine beneath the table.
“You know I love you, bitch,” she said, her voice softened.
I smiled at her.
“I just—I just don’t know if I can face him,” I told her, avoiding the irritated glare of a waiter passing.
JoJo reached across the table to take my hand.
“You don’t know if you can face him or face you?” she asked.
Before I could ask her what the fuck that meant, she kicked back her chair with a loud scrape as she stood, drawing all kinds of stares from the restaurant. “He’s here.”
It was a whirlwind as she kissed my head, wished me good luck, stole a bread basket from the table behind ours, and darted out the emergency exit.
Suddenly, Tim was there, grasping my elbows, kissing my cheek, holding out my chair for me. Ordering both of us a glass of wine as he straightened his tie across from me.
“Tim,” I said, voice fluttering, “Tim, I—”
It all came out. The truth. All of it. The truth about my past. The truth about who I was before I met him. The truth about who I’d transformed myself into when he’d fallen for me. The truth about Mason then. The truth about Mason now. I apologised more times than I could count. I cried and Tim, instead of chastising me about getting emotional in public, just offered his napkin.
At the end I was empty. At the end I was a total shit. I couldn’t even meet Tim’s eye.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured again, shaking my head. “I should go.”
I went to leave. Tim stopped me with a hand atop mine.
“Rachel…”
