I cannot come up with anything more to say because I know me trying to convince her of anything different from her predictions would be false reassurance; to her it would nothing but noise. In reality, we're all a just bunch of actors, awaiting our curtain call, practicing the same over rehearsed lines. I think we both know that.. but some days, some days we make the mistake of pretending that the world is more than one grand show production.
She takes small but frequent sips of her hot espresso, pinky finger out with a posture only obtainable through years of living with an overbearing mother.
I stare at her as she scans the coffee shop, looking for something I can't put my finger on by just following her eyes.
"You know, on the 5 PM train the other day I saw a woman scolding her child to the point where the poor boy was on the verge of tears. I witnessed it right in front of me as she berated the child.. and I did nothing to stop it. I just buried my nose deeper into my book and tried to pretend I was already swept away into a different land. I kept trying to say to myself that what was happening wasn't any of my business and that I had no right to tell her what to do and not to do regarding her child. For a brief second, I even entertained the thought that the boy deserved it. I tried to reason with myself that the boy was at fault; maybe he did something wrong, maybe this would teach him a lesson. For a brief second, I thought how dare they force this guilt upon me—"
She stops. She tears her eye contact away from the imagery object that it was fixated on and meets my gaze after a moment of silence.