Broken by Megan Hart Page B

himself instead of me. We stare at each other for a minute. I don’t know what to think. A little while ago I was sure he was going to be my next boyfriend, but now I’m not sure I ever want to see him again. Joe seems complicated. Maybe it’s because he’s old.
    “Well then,” I ask him, “what is it?”
    “You’re young,” says Joe, as if that makes sense, even though it doesn’t.
    “Huh?”
    He sighs again and gets up to start putting on his clothes. “You’re young, Brandy. Really young.”
    “I’m…I’m young?” I think I should be pissed off.
    “Really young.”
    I get the feeling he doesn’t just mean my age. “Well, you’re old!”
    He’s got his clothes on now, though nothing’s buttoned or zipped, and he’s got his tie clutched in one hand like it’s a snake he’s trying to choke. Joe runs a hand through his hair. I’ve never seen him look so rumpled.
    “No hard feelings?” He asks.
    “No. I guess not.”
    What else can I say? I can diet and exercise to shrink my ass and I can keep my legs closed, but I can’t make myself any older than I am.
    Joe leans over to kiss my forehead. “See you, Brandy.”
    He lets himself out of my bedroom, and a few moments later I hear the front door slam. I go to my window and watch him drive away. The next time I see him at the coffee shop, I make Cyndi wait on him and I pretend I don’t see him.
     
    Joe looked pensive. We ate and drank in mutual silence for a few minutes. I didn’t have anything to say about what he’d told me.
    “It was like getting a blow job from a puppy,” he said finally. “All slobber and gobbling and wriggling around.”
    I burst into laughter, though I felt bad for poor Brandy. “Oh, Joe.”
    He gave me a sly smile. “It’s true. She was…”
    “Young,” I finished for him. “She sounded young.”
    He toyed with his drink. “Yeah. She was.”
    “Maybe you shouldn’t go out with girls in college,” I ventured. “If it bothers you.”
    He looked up at me, one brow raised. “It doesn’t. At least, it didn’t.”
    It wasn’t quite warm enough to eat outside, but in the atrium, the sun beating down through the glass was brutal. Everything seemed moist and sticky, but also somehow…waiting. The plants seemed to know spring was coming. Maybe they waited for it the way children wait for Christmas. I took a long drink from my bottle of water, but sweat still pearled in my hairline and trickled down the knobs of my spine to tickle the crack in my buttocks.
    I don’t know what to think. I’m never really sure half the things Joe tells me are true. I certainly know my own imagination provides details I can’t know, things he can’t know, either. Our lunches are absolutely about fulfilling fantasies, and if Joe’s lying to me about the women he fucks, I’m not sure I want to know.
    There’s a lot about Joe I do know. He doesn’t like to share food or drink, or kiss on the mouth. He lost his virginity to his mother’s best friend. He has expensive taste. I know where he went to high school. We shield ourselves with stories of the past because revealing the present would be too intimate.
    I know everything and nothing about him all at the same time.
    “But it bothers you now?”
    I looked at him. He studied his hands. The cuffs of his shirt, a dark pink, like the petals of a Stargazer Lily, peeked out from the edges of his dark suit.
    “Yeah.”
    “Why?
    “Hey, even ice cream tastes bad after a while if that’s all you eat.”
    “Oh, Joe.” For a couple hours, every month, he made it easy for me to be a woman who could laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re becoming more discriminating in your old age.”
    Joe tipped his face to the bright sunlight streaming through the windows. I admired his profile when he wasn’t looking at me. He’d had a haircut, and he looked shorn. His ears protruded endearingly. The nape of his neck looked vulnerable. I caught a glimpse of silver in the gold of his hair, which