He called.
He still only guesses that the owner dislikes him, but not why, still bitter at being denied the job he was promised, and thinks that’s because the owner dislikes him, too.
We don’t talk about her when he calls, although her presence is everywhere like a haunting spirit neither of us can get rid of, and he doesn’t want to.
We chit chat about everything but her, going round it as if we were circling a black hole, one false move and we both get sucked up into it.
I dare not ask if he saw her picture in the magazine in which she is posing as if fighting with a professional boxer, what he might have thought about it, did he wish he was the boxer she posed with?
Her last few posts and some Facebook messages seemed aimed at people who are giving her advice, in one message she saying, “even mentors are human,” as if disparaging them.
Although he was her mentor in our office, I can’t believe she meant him in these. He’s too dedicated to her. He would lay down and let her walk over him to avoid any possible disaster.
We can’t talk about that either, whether he saw what I saw, and did he believe he was the subject and did he feel hurt by it, if he did.
I want to comfort him, to assure him that he would be the last person she would do that to, but since we can’t talk about her, I can’t help him, and all I can do is wonder, and chit chat about subjects that have nothing and yet everything to do with her, those safe steps beyond the black hole’s rim, those steps we have to watch out for, each time we talk.
I tell myself he’s a big boy, who has stepped over fiery coals before, learning from experience, and yet, he’s almost as innocent as she is, (she might be) and I think there’s nobody else he can confide in except for me, but won’t, can’t, scared I’ll betray him again.
So, he must walk through the fire alone, perhaps scared, certainly wondering what he did wrong, if she meant him in those poems.
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