Ethan lights a cigarette, looks out of the window. I do too. Then at the menu. Then the window again. The absolute silence between us is slowly killing me.
“You feeling better?” I ask him.
He nods, still staring out the window. He exhales.
“It’s weird to see you smoking,” I say. “Didn’t you do a science project one time that showed the amount of toxins in a cigarette butt?”
He takes a drag, side-eyes me, and exhales against the pane of glass.
I fidget with the corner of the menu. “I can drive the rest of the way if you want. I seriously don’t mind.”
He takes a drag. He keeps staring disinterestedly out of the window.
The waitress brings our coffee. I end up ordering pancakes. Ethan just asks for a side of french fries.
“You should probably eat a little more than that,” I suggest to him once the waitress has walked off with our menus.
He pours some cream into his coffee. “Thanks for helping me earlier. But you need to stop talking to me like my mom.”
The insult stings. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to say to you.” I sigh. It seems he’s back to being hostile to me again.
It’s starting to snow. A fresh layer sticks to the dirty layers piled up in the parking lot. The faint daylight coming in through the window lights up Ethan’s face in a flattering way. I decide that I like his blond hair. It actually suits him. It suits his whole melancholy look. Including that eyeliner.
I pull the disposable camera out of my pocket. “Can I take a picture of you?”
He stubs out his cigarette. “I don’t care.”
I snap a photo of Ethan gazing out of the window. Then I get another one from a different angle. “The light’s really good here. It’s hitting your face just right.”
He shifts his gaze over to me again. He looks tired. “Please don’t do this shit.”
“Do what?” I wind the film.
He shakes his head. “Just stop it, Shane.”
I put the camera down. I look down at the table. It isn’t very clean. There’s something sticky on one corner. I wipe at it with a napkin. “I still have all those pictures, you know. From before.”
Before Ethan can respond, the waitress shows up with our food. We thank her. Ethan takes off his coat and tucks it in between himself and the urn. He adjusts it, moving it closer to the window, and then he digs into his fries. I pour syrup on my pancakes.
I watch Ethan with his plate of fries, worried he should eat more. I watch as he lays them in a pattern, like he’s building a fence around his plate, then he dips them in ketchup and eats them.
A memory pokes through the surface of my mind. A long-forgotten memory. One of Everett. And Ethan too. It makes me smile.
Ethan notices. He glares at me. “What? You want another stupid picture?”
“You remember that one time we went up to that diner in Lowville?” I ask. “Pete’s, I think? It might not be there anymore.”
He keeps glaring.
“I was just thinking about that one night,” I continue, gazing out of the window again at the snow falling on the highway. “It was really late, we’d been at that movie place, and Everettwanted to go to the diner because Monica Simpson was working, and he had a thing for her.”
Ethan’s brows pinch with thought.
“Monica didn’t wait on us. It was this older lady, and she didn’t like us for some reason, so we all ordered a bunch of french fries and built like this tower of french fries and tried to play it likeJenga.”
I remember we’d pulled fries from the tower, eating them, until it eventually collapsed. Everett had been distracted, trying to get Monica’s attention, and caused it to fall. We made a mess, but before we got up to leave, Everett cleaned up some of it and left the waitress a nice tip.
“It was Ev’s idea,” Ethan says softly. “The tower thing. He was trying to get Monica to look over at us.”
