Page 49 of Header
The door closes. The elevator dings down the hall. His footsteps fade. I stand in the hallway in my briefs.
I’m going to stand in this hallway and not text Tomáš back about the brunch plans he’s been asking about since Friday because I can’t sit at a table with my brother and look at him across a plate of eggs and not have my face do the thing my face does.
I change the sheets. I shower. The water is hot and the bathroom still smells faintly like his soap and I let it.
I make myself eggs because I’m hungry and because making eggs is a thing a person does on a Sunday afternoon when they’re living forward.
I pick up my phone. I text him.
Good luck with film review. Tell me how it goes tonight.
I set the phone down. I watch the screen. Ten seconds.
I’ll tell you tonight.
Four words. I read them twice. I choose to believe them.
I pick up the book from the nightstand, the one I was reading before his text came, the one where the heroine is keeping a secret she thinks will cost her the person she loves. I already know how this one ends. She tells him. He stays. The secret was never as heavy as she thought it was.
BRNO'S BEST #3
Šíma
restaurant update. I have found a place off Ponce that does a pork shoulder that made Kovár cry
Kovár
I did not cry. my eyes responded to the smoke
Šíma
his eyes responded. that is what happened. the man was moved by pork
Novotný
the pork was good
Polášek
you had chicken
Novotný
I'm speaking generally. the establishment had good energy. the pork was part of the energy
Polášek
you can't review pork you didn't eat
Novotný
I was adjacent to the pork. the adjacency counts
Šíma
the adjacency counts. Novotný has spoken. I am filing this under pork-adjacent testimony
Kovár
