If there's one thing I've ever learned, it's that when confronted with an uncomfortable situation, the most mundane things become the most interesting. My eyes focused acutely on the beads of condensation rolling down the glass of tea in front of me. As a young girl, when driving through a rainstorm, my favorite game was to pick two unsuspecting raindrops that had settled on the window and watch them race down its slick surface. This glass was smaller than a car window, but the game still had the same mind-numbingly innocent effect, allowing time to slip by as quickly as the droplets, without having to endure the encounter at its fullest.
My attention flickered wordlessly between the glass of tea in front of me and Naomi's folded hands, particularly the scar right above her thumb, which time had healed into a white crescent moon shape, where she'd cut it on a mug in our kitchen, preparing our morning coffee.
Naomi ran her fingers across the scar, biting her bottom lip and averting her crystal blue eyes from mine, seeming to be sharing in the memory with me, wallowing in our abundance of mutual experience.
At that moment, I was vaguely aware I was being asked a question I was meant to respond to, and I answered before I had actually processed what had been said, a sick habit I couldn't seem to shake that resulted from both daydreaming and avoiding the inevitable.
"So you'll go to our wedding?" I realized had been the question, and in retrospect, my pre-process "Yeah, sure," had been the wrong choice. Apparently she had been prattling on about her fiancé, and all I could think about was a fucking scar on her thumb.
Naomi gave me the most heartbreaking half smile before reaching into her bag and handing me an embellished envelope, inside I assumed were enough words to break my already shattered heart. But she looked so sincere, as if I would love to watch her step down the silk lined aisle we'd planned so immensely, place her hands in someone else's and say "I do".
I stepped out of the café, hugging my deep blue hoodie closer to me against the imaginary cold, one word on repeat in my muddled brain, "Fuck."