I’m in the stairwell of a parking garage.  I’ve been missing Chinese food something fierce and we decide to risk P.F. Chang’s to satiate me.  We’d just had one of the most unsatisfying meals of my life.  They’re allowed to call that Chinese food?

We stop dead in our tracks on the landing between floors as he destroys my world with four words.  I stand frozen, white knuckling the hand rail, as reality tries to break through.

BOOM!  He tricked me.

BOOM!  I won’t stay here.

BOOM!  I’ll have to do this alone.

BOOM!  My future is over.

And then it’s done, it’s just over.  It’s like a cease fire without the discussion.  There’s nothing but silence.  We spend days with no words, unscheduled solo trips to Williamsburg, and opposing work schedules.  If I don’t acknowledge this it simply is not happening.

Three years later a boy asks me on a date.  I’m already trying to think of ways to dodge it when he offers to take me to P.F. Chang’s.  Of all places!  It wasn’t difficult to turn that down, I’ll never eat there again.  I will never relive that again.  Though I have wondered, would it be any different if the food had been good?

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