Page 162 of The Comedown

“But you knew they’d have crepes?”

“I ate here last year.” He pauses. “I wrote here last year. Maybe I ate, too, I don’t know. I just remember seeing people around me ordering crepes and thought it’d make good hangover food.”

“I’m not hungover.”

His voice comes out stern, more stern than I’ve ever heard, as he scolds, “Not yet, but you will be if you don’t soak up some of the alcohol you just dumped in your system.”

“I’m gonna pass out,” I tell him plainly, just so we’re clear.

He only looks over the menu, saying, “You’re gonna eat some motherfucking crepes first.”

I get lost in him, his eyes moving so fast it’s hard to keep up.

“Why were you writing here?”

His eyes cease all movement. “You saw my bus.” Four words that feel like four thousand.

I saw. Before my eyes turned against me, I saw.

“Is it always like that?”

He nods, resuming his perusal of the menu. “Sometimes worse.”

“Worse?”

“Sometimes I can’t even find a place to sit.”

That’s right. Or sleep. I remember that one morning he had an indentation on his forehead from falling asleep at a table.

“Why not just…kick everyone off?”

Julian stops reading again, this time to look at me and ask, “Then what would I do?”

I relax against the cushioned booth, barely resisting the urge to snuggle myself and rest. I’m so fucking tired.

“Write, for starters.”

He shakes his head, returning his attention to the menu. “It’d be quiet.”

“And when it’s quiet the questions come. ‘Why’d they do it? What’d you do to deserve it? Could you have done anything to stop it?’”

Leaning forward, Julian cranks his head over his shoulder. “Where’s our server?”

“‘Was it even your fault?’”

“Jesus. It might be Monday morning by the time we get someone to take our order.”

“‘What if—’”

“Collette,” Julian snaps, and I close my mouth. “Fuck. Yes, okay? I don’t like rehashing the worst parts of my life and the noise helps. It helps…just, it helps.”

“Only for so long though.”

“How do you know?”

The waitress appears, apparently not giving a single shit who we are, and Julian gives her our orders. I secretly love that he orders for me. Not because I like someone talking for me, but because I like that he knows me well enough to guess what I’d order myself. He gets the orange ricotta crepe for himself and the ham with pepper jack for me—exactly what I would’ve chosen if I could make out the options.

The waitress leaves with an eye roll I feel down to my marrow. She really doesn’t care.