Spinach and feta with hollandaise sauce on mortification toast

You're beautiful, he told me last night, which caused me to snort attractively in derision. So he told me why. (Affirmation. Always nice.)

Naturally, I bugger it up first thing in the morning. Because I'm good at that sort of thing. Gawd.

Later, whizzing around the café strip riding tandem, my eyes watering from the brisk air and the helmet making it hard to hear, I hang on, my arms wrapped around Captain Starlight just a little tighter than strictly necessary just because I enjoy the feel of muscle tensing under my hands.

We end up at a little place with gorgeous textured walls and order breakfast. Mine looks divine. His, less inspiring. We start off perusing our reading material, (newspapers for him, Inside for me) but I distract him by gawping at gorgeous interiors, causing him to crane his neck to see what I'm going "ooooh" over. We end up talking instead of reading and as the food disappears, the conversation gets more and more intense and somehow it ends up in painful places, and then, to my utter horror, I completely fail at my violent mental attempts to impose my will over the forces of gravity and lacrimation.

He put out his hand, and I feel my fingers caught lightly in his. Are you okay?
Yes.
I'm sorry.
No, I say. It's not you. It's just...bad memories.
And it is.

When I can look up without humiliating myself further, he's looking at me and his eyes have shaded to green and I stare back, unable to read him. I'm not sure if something has changed.

Let's talk about something else, he says.
Yeah..
And we both smile at each other, tentatively, a little ruefully.

It wasn't, I think, that he was wrong, but that he touched a nerve because perhaps he was right. It's covered, but not healed, and the conversation ripped the scabs right off. I didn't realize how much further I had to go until today. Thank God for Grey's Anatomy, which let me wail my head off for four episodes as catharsis. On Grey's there’s always someone worse off than you.