James used to pride himself in everything he did. He worked hard and accepted nothing less than his best. Now, he wasn’t even sure what his best was anymore. His high tipping customers were the ones that preferred waiters who weren’t chatty, but on the whole he wasn’t exactly a favourite. When he smiled it was strained. He was impersonal. A customer had once reviewed him with the phrase “nothing special”. He agreed. They started putting him on the same shifts as Grainger, which helped. When Grainger was around his strained smiles became more genuine.
Today was not one of those days. Grainger was at the theatre, and a small part of him could hear his old self hoping that Grainger was with Christine. Those were the moments that jarred him the most — when he realized that there was a small piece of himself left from before the war that snuck its way through the cracks. There was a comfort in it, but there was fear, too. It forced him to face the reality that he was a different person. A stranger. A ghost of his former self. It made him feel sick to think of what he looked like to people like Grainger or Jack who knew him before — he hated being broken. They deserved better than that.
What he hadn’t expected today was to run into an old friend. If James had seen her before walking up to her table he probably would have fallen back, begged one of his co-workers to take the table for him — anything to avoid facing the past.
His features softened when he saw her face. He recognized that look.
“Toni.”
Toni glanced at a clock that was on the wall across from her and a decent distance away. She wondered at what point would Kyle notice her missing. He’d been at the club late recently, but he could be trying to surprise her by being home early tonight. God, why had she gone to the restaurant alone? She should have waited to see if he’d be home. He’d be made if he got home and she wasn’t there. Not that she truly went out on her own out of malice, but she couldn’t blame him for being mad if he was trying to do something nice. It was a lot of effort for him to care.
She was pulled out of her thoughts on Kyle by the voice of someone who would always do it. He always had had a knack for it even if he’d never been trying. A childish crush back in the day she shouldn’t have been having, especially with a boyfriend, especially with her being a freshman and him being a senior, but no one ever forgot the guy that chased away those bullies when you were three. And she hadn’t heard his voice in so long. There was a time where she was worried she’d never hear it again, but she’d stood by to comfort Grainger more than herself because he needed it more than her. But how she’d been so afraid. She’d never said anything to him and there was a part of her that knew with him around, anything Kyle did mattered less.
She looked at him, but looking at him eight years later, she was afraid to admit she was looking at someone different. Maybe she was different too. “James?” she greeted back in the tone of a question. She pulled at her sleeve a little on her left arm to make sure her wrist was covered but she’d gotten really good at making it look like a natural tick.
“Grainger told me you were back, I’d been meaning to visit, but I was a little busy and... How are you?”