Waiting for the train

Is awkward silence the product of two incompatible people? I really hope so. But then again he’s so darn cute, I almost don’t.

But if not that means that it is the fault of one person or the other that the room is so deafeningly quiet. That means it could quite possibly be my fault that he and I are sitting in a silence that is so tangible it feels like peanut butter.

Should I say something about peanut butter...

Or maybe about how cold I am, or how hungry I am, or how the weather really doesn’t know what it wants to do, or maybe just how darn tired I am...

Am I boring? God I’m boring. I wish I had my phone, then at least I could act like the silence isn’t bothering me.

Quick say something witty... that’s a funny word... w-i-t-t-y

If I say that out loud is that just quirky enough to be interesting? It could be a funny start to a wonderful relationship. We could tell our kids one day, “I was sitting there, twiddling my thumbs hoping your father would say something but instead we sat soundlessly next to each other, and while I was thinking about how to break the ice with some wonderfully witty joke I started thinking aloud how fun the word witty was. It made your father laugh because...”

“I thought it was just the strangest, most random observation. But if I’m being honest she’s not wrong, it really is an interesting word,” he would say in the voice I had not yet heard him use.

“God it’s cold in here.”

Oh fuck he scared me. His voice isn’t at all how I imagined it. It is deeper with the occasional crack. His mouth moves a little different too. When he speaks, the words seem to tumble out of only the right side of his lips. Like the left side of his mouth had been glued shut. Maybe he had had a stroke. Or an injury. Or it was the result of a cleft lip surgery. Or he thought it was suave and charming to use only the right side of his mouth. It gives him a kind of mumble that I hadn’t expected.

Oh fuck, I never responded.

“Yeah this weather really doesn’t know what it wants to do.”