It was just dusk when the glass shattered, shards of their precarious silence lying on the tiled floor.
"No."
The young man in the chair opposite of her looked up, then back down at his spaghetti. I nearly dropped the glass I was holding! On all their Friday evenings, I had never heard either speak a word. Neither moved for a second, and then the young lady snatched her handbag, chair screeching, before strutting out of doors, into the horizon. Finally, the man looked up as she walked out the door, hands ruffling his meticulously styled hair as he crumpled in his lacquered chair.
I, being the nosy bloke you know I am, couldn't help but wonder aloud, "Why, isn't he gonna go after her?" I've never regretted saying anything more in my life.
The question echoed around the suddenly silent diner, the poor boy looked terribly shocked, and I couldn't help but pity him. Waving my towel in the air to dismiss the crowd's penetrating gazes, I brought him the usual slice of chocolate mousse cake. Only when I approached did he peer up at me, eyes filled with dry tears, candlelight flicking in the depthless pools of his evident despair. Straightening up, he managed a weary smile.
"Any way I can cancel that?"
I almost nodded my head, but his luck held, and my manager marched right over there and told him all about how our desserts were the finest, and how he shouldn't have ordered it if he didn't want it.
The lad rubbed his eyes, and shook his head. "It's just that..." He broke off, evidently deeming this a lost cause. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am. I'll take it, I've been told it's absolutely delicious."
A triumphant smile spreading on her face, my manager completely ignored the way he gazed at that slice of luscious dark chocolate as if it was an neon green kangaroo. I, on the other hand, was completely confused. Hadn't the pair of them eaten this every Friday night? Him in his various suits of the same, her with her strings of pearls and matching shades of different similarity in stagnant silence? And I, the ever faithfully employee, with two forks clattering against the table every week?
In the end, the young man broke me out of my thoughts. A laugh bubbled from his chest, racking into a sob. Only then did I notice the closed satin box clutched in a fist.
Breaking the cycle of his hysterics, he took a large forkful of cake and held it up in the air, muttering incredulously, "I don't even like chocolate, you know that?"
"No."
The young man in the chair opposite of her looked up, then back down at his spaghetti. I nearly dropped the glass I was holding! On all their Friday evenings, I had never heard either speak a word. Neither moved for a second, and then the young lady snatched her handbag, chair screeching, before strutting out of doors, into the horizon. Finally, the man looked up as she walked out the door, hands ruffling his meticulously styled hair as he crumpled in his lacquered chair.
I, being the nosy bloke you know I am, couldn't help but wonder aloud, "Why, isn't he gonna go after her?" I've never regretted saying anything more in my life.
The question echoed around the suddenly silent diner, the poor boy looked terribly shocked, and I couldn't help but pity him. Waving my towel in the air to dismiss the crowd's penetrating gazes, I brought him the usual slice of chocolate mousse cake. Only when I approached did he peer up at me, eyes filled with dry tears, candlelight flicking in the depthless pools of his evident despair. Straightening up, he managed a weary smile.
"Any way I can cancel that?"
I almost nodded my head, but his luck held, and my manager marched right over there and told him all about how our desserts were the finest, and how he shouldn't have ordered it if he didn't want it.
The lad rubbed his eyes, and shook his head. "It's just that..." He broke off, evidently deeming this a lost cause. "Sorry to bother you, ma'am. I'll take it, I've been told it's absolutely delicious."
A triumphant smile spreading on her face, my manager completely ignored the way he gazed at that slice of luscious dark chocolate as if it was an neon green kangaroo. I, on the other hand, was completely confused. Hadn't the pair of them eaten this every Friday night? Him in his various suits of the same, her with her strings of pearls and matching shades of different similarity in stagnant silence? And I, the ever faithfully employee, with two forks clattering against the table every week?
In the end, the young man broke me out of my thoughts. A laugh bubbled from his chest, racking into a sob. Only then did I notice the closed satin box clutched in a fist.
Breaking the cycle of his hysterics, he took a large forkful of cake and held it up in the air, muttering incredulously, "I don't even like chocolate, you know that?"
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