happy birfday

There is one half hour and two minutes with some seconds left until he leaves for an evening that is just as usual as many other evenings that have been planned. He will pick up his best friend, watch her nonchalance sidle by the windshield before she gracefully sets herself in the black interior of Cecilia. He will drive the two of them out to a restaurant on 22, because everything is located on 22, where they will meet however many other people and where he will spend the money he doesn't have on food he may not really enjoy because he'll think about the free food he could have enjoyed at home. He will relish in the evening of talk, or no talk, or very little, but never strained talk, all the while hoping beyond hope that the people he is with like him just as much as he really likes them, all the while gaging whether his input in the conversation is actually needed, all the while smiling. He will continue the evening not quite sure if he's enjoying himself because, rather than being part of the much or the little going on before him, he will be in his head, thinking about all else he needs to do, all the other places he could be, wondering about all the other things he is missing.

And in the end, when he pays for the check, continues the evening, drops his best friend off, sneaks a cigarette, thinks about going home, goes home, sits on his bed, stairs at the wall, and thinks about it all, he will know that he enjoyed himself immensely.

Because he was with Liz Til, his best friend, and all the other people that he really likes, even if it isn't mutual. And even if he didn't really enjoy the food.