Re: NYC: Hannah & Hugh
"I like bars like these," she admitted. "They have character. Not many things in Florida have character, because everything feels too new to have grown one yet, a character. But this feels like it has character, but it's always filled with voices, and you can just sit and listen and close your eyes," which she did, menu in her hand and completely unconcerned that she might appear odd. "You can listen, and you can tell the voices apart after a few seconds, and they you can untangle them all and hear bits of conversation, and it's a little like an orchestra." She opened her eyes again, and she smiled at him before looking down at the menu held in her fingers.
"Do you not feel as if you belong in Repose?" she asked, perusing appetizers and thinking she already knew how he'd answer the question. But she looked up when the waiter came, and she ordered a glass of prosecco.
She considered what he was saying, even as she considered mozzarella sticks. "I think it's worse if it never happens. If you yearn for someone, and you don't ever really have them, and it's stuck there inside your head. You can be with other people, but you always wonder what could've been, and you never really let yourself be happy with anyone, and you don't let it happen because part of you, a tiny little part, is always holding out and waiting and dreaming of that other person. So that whenever you and your partner fight or argue or things go wrong, you fall back on that old dream. And I think it eventually grows big and perfect in your mind, and nothing is ever perfect." She put down the menu. "I want mozzarella sticks, I think."
She sighed, and the waiter came with drinks, and she waited for him to order, for her own order to go in, for the waiter to go. She played with the stem of her prosecco. "Things have been really, really bad with Jamie since I got home," she finally said, the words claiming space without her even realizing they were going to do so. "You tell me something now."