him.
        We sat quietly for a while, not saying anything. That was how we did it: relaxed, don’t force it, speak only when something comes to mind.
        But my imagination got the best of me. I suspected he was still angry about the girl in San Francisco and waiting for the right moment to lash out. I decided to break the ice first. “So how you been?”
        This was always a dangerous question, the response usually ranging from “Alright, I guess,” on a good day to, “Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I just hate this fuckin’ town,” at the other end.
        Today, thank God, it was, “Oh, alright, I guess.”
        I assessed his eyes, weary this morning.
        “It’s been a while.”
        “Yep,” he said, revealing nothing.
        “How was your week?”
        He shrugged. “Okay.”
        I was getting tired of one-word answers.“Are you ready for the next question?”
        He smiled.“Sorry. I guess my mind was drifting. How are you?”
        I shrugged. “Good. Do we need to talk about anything? Is there still an issue with the San Francisco trip?”
        He assessed me, confused. “San Francisco?”
        “About the woman at the Starbucks? About how I was supposedly trying to prevent you from talking to her?”
        “You were?” he said, bewildered.
        Somehow this really irked me. After putting me through the ringer, accusing me of grave misdeeds, he suddenly doesn’t remember? Really?
        “Well, no, I wasn’t, but you seemed to think I was. Remember our conversation about that?”
        He seemed genuinely at a loss. “Oh, I guess I might have been upset. I probably let my cognitive distortions do their thing again.”
        I eased back in my seat. “Well, yeah, maybe. You were pretty angry that night. You kept accusing me of trying to prevent you from talking to that woman at Starbuck’s. You kept asking if I would have tried to break up the conversation and maybe steal her away for myself.”
        He looked dumbly to me. “I said that?’
        “Yeah.”
        “I guess I just wondered. I wondered about