Untitled S&R Chapter Fourteen
Untitled S&R
Chapter Fourteen
S and R saw each other effortlessly at least once a week, and communicated daily via voice notes.
S once asked R what the secret to their seamless friendship was and R had confidently claimed it was the voice notes. “Actually hearing your voice adds something personal that messages just don’t,” she said.
S quickly agreed, sending her own voice note to add that background noise played an important part.
“It feels like we’re spending the day together.
We end up talking about nothing because we can and it’s the little, random things, like, ‘Not again—my drawer’s stuck!
’ or the ‘Hang on, that’s the postman. I ordered…
’ and the ‘Let me just take the chicken out of the oven’ that make it feel like you know the person a bit more.
You’re unlikely to include all those little things in a text message. ”
Tonight, S&R were seated at the Italian restaurant Aria. Early on, they’d combined their respective lists of Restaurants to Try, and were steadily making their way through. The greatest thing about having one friend, and them not having many friends either, was that plans were rarely canceled.
S had been in the middle of pleading the case of a piglet whose mother had gone into the making of R’s carbonara when suddenly, her glass of wine slipped from her hand and tumbled onto the tablecloth.
S had seen something past R’s shoulder and R followed her sight line to land on a table of three diners. They looked like two parents out with their daughter. They caught S and R watching, and immediately, R turned away at having been found out, but S continued to stare.
“What is it?” R asked her. “Who are they?” But her questions were in vain. S had frozen.
R turned back to the diners, specifically the young woman. From a distance R might have mistaken her for S.
“Is that your sister?” R asked. “Are those your parents?”
Finally, S managed to nod.
R looked back one final time. S’s dad had been the first to break eye contact, and the way in which he returned to his plate told everyone that he was going to pretend as if he’d never seen them.
S’s sister swallowed hard but eventually followed suit.
S’s mother, however? She struggled. Then she stood up at the exact moment S did.
Her mother smiled softly, and S made the first move. She walked up to their table.
With S’s back to her, R couldn’t hear what was being said, but the conversation was heated judging by the engrossed stares coming from the diners at the table closest to them.
S’s mother looked to be pleading with her father, and her sister sat quietly, looking down at her lap.
Then as quickly as it had started, the conversation was over…
but not before R overheard S’s father say:
“We could never forgive what you did. Please don’t ask us to try.”