He's right, of course. There isn't anything wrong with my loving Michael. I guess there was, once. When it was impossible for us to be together —to become the cliché "us"— but it isn't now... I'm just afraid to say anything to him. I mean, first of all, I don't think Michael would ever say anything about it to me; he doesn't even want to talk about what happened the other night. But, you know, I would die to know whether... deep down... whether he liked it...
And secondly, I'm afraid to scare him away from me. That he won't even be able to be my friend if he knows... Yeah, I know, if they don't understand, they probably aren't worth it in the first place— but that doesn't lessen the pain of their absence. That saying is like trying to put one of those little round bandaids, that are barely any good for a pin-prick, on a gaping wound that needs stitches.

...At least, that's how I imagine it.

God, I am so sick of thinking about this...

When Andrew came back to the table I was composed again, and resolved not to talk about it anymore.
I saw him differently, when I finally stopped thinking about myself. And he was a picture... Not really striking, in his dark blue jeans and baseball shirt; but, suddenly, everything about him interested me, from the tips of his shaggy, shiny black hair, to the asphalt smudges on the white rubber toes of his red Chucks.