I couldn't take my eyes off him. My mouth wouldn't work. He was there. Standing before me, as handsome as ever. His body looking as strong and muscular as it always had underneath the black chef's jacket with golden details. His brown hair as thick and smooth. Facial features sharp with the permanent five o'clock shadow. His eyes filled with life. No sign of the pain which haunted me. It looked like he had risen from the grave.

And I had no idea how to react. I felt as stunned as if he would have been Romeo coming back to life after killing himself.

A platonic friend-Romeo, of course. Like I was Mercutio in that story. Not Juliet.

Except, Mercutio died in the play before Romeo even committed suicide. So he wouldn't have been around to watch him come back.

This analogue really didn't work.

And while I had been busy thinking about this less than mediocre analogue, he was still waiting for me to speak. What had he even said?

Ye finally decided to come inside.

Finally? As if he knew I had spent time not going inside.

"How... How long have ye known I..." My cheeks were heating up unbearably much.

"One of the waitresses noticed ye Wednesday," he answered with that charmingly teasing smirk.

"I..." I was mortified.

His smirk evolved into a smile instead. Warm and soft. The type of smile which, when we were alone, would lead to him ruffling my hair. Now he instead turned his head to the side. I followed his line of sight and saw a clock on the wall.

"I don't have time to talk right now," he said, and his words were knives against my skin. Piercing and tearing. Making me bleed. But before my interpretation of his words spiralled into me bleeding out, he continued. "We close at midnight. We'll talk then. Do ye want to eat here or will ye leave an' come back?"

"Eat here," I answered and cringed over how weak my voice sounded.

"Do ye know what?"

I didn't even glance at the unopened menu, but continued to keep my eyes on him as I shook my head. "Do ye recommend anythin'?"

His lips tugged upwards a bit more. I wished he would ruffle my hair if only to feel completely that all was fine. Though, of course, all wasn't fine between us. This conversation made me hopeful things could be, however. That there was a possibility for me to get my best friend back.

"I know what to make ye," he answered, and I just nodded.

He walked away again. Walked back to the kitchen, but just seeing him walking away caused my head to spin. Memories flashed of all the other times he had walked away from me and the outcomes of those instances. How all the times he had walked away had been small cracks in our friendship until it had been broken beyond repair.

"Errol!" I called after him.

He turned back around. His eyes searched over my face with a slight crease of his eyebrows, and my body relaxed. He had turned back to me. He hadn't just kept walking away.

"I..." I had to say something to explain why I had called his name. I really didn't know what to say, though. What might be appropriate. So the truth tumbled out. "I've missed ye."

His eyebrows smoothed out again. The soft smile was back. "We'll talk more later," he reassured me before disappearing behind the door leading to the kitchen.

As soon as I couldn't see him, I stood up. The air in the restaurant felt too thick. My throat clogged. My clothes were uncomfortable against my skin. They pressed as if they were a size too small. And itched as if they were made of low-quality wool. And the temperature. Someone had to have turned up the heat to burning.

"Ye leavin'?" the waitress by the entrance asked.

With a cracked mumble, I managed to get one word out, "Smoke."

My fingers trembled, and it took me a million attempts before the cigarette was lit. When the smoke hit my lungs, I felt like I could breathe again.

Ironic how something which was slowly killing me could be so good at the moment.

The worst was over though, I told myself again and again as I smoked. I had seen him. We had talked. The ice was broken.

And he seemed fine.

He had smiled. No pain, no anger or resentment.

He had been like before the Incident. No, not even that. He had been like a few months before the Incident, before things had started going wrong. Before I had slept with Flora.

I wasn't sure that had been what had started the breaking of our friendship, but for the last one and a half years I had thought about those last months almost obsessively. Over and over, and tried to find what went wrong. What I could have done differently.

My obsessing always led me back to New Year's and me and Flora drinking at "never have I ever had sex with someone present".

Would things have turned out differently if that hadn't happened?

Did I want things to have turned out differently?

I had obsessed over that question as well. And no matter how miserable I had felt, how guilty and lonely, my answer had always been the same.

No.

How long would he have kept it up, kept pretending to be fine if I hadn't started dating anyone?

Though he had hurt, though I was hurting, I was happy for him for living his truth.

When I got back to my table, the waitress placed a pint down in front of me almost immediately.

"I didn't order this," I pointed out, but she just gave me a smile.

"It's on the house," she winked.

Around fifteen minutes later, she returned with a plate.

"Hope ye enjoy yer meal!" she told me before walking off again.

I looked down at the plate, and I couldn't stop my lips from turning upwards.

"Mum isn't cookin' dinner anymore." I hadn't needed to tell him anything else. It had been enough for him to take my hand, walk me to my house, and cook for me and Airlia. It had been an awful, awful dinner. But both me and Airlia had eaten it all and then we had begged him to cook for us the next day.

On my plate was a pasta dish with pesto, asparagus, tomato, pine nuts, onion, but, most importantly, cut up pieces of sausages.

I didn't know if he even remembered that first time he had cooked for me, but I sure did. Pasta and sausages.

Of course very simple compared to this dish with the extra stuff, but it still reminded me of that first time.

I smiled and swallowed to stop my tears from pouring.

It was delicious, but every bite became harder and harder to eat. As if every bite contained a memory of him taking care of me, protecting me.

All the hugs which had dried my tears. All the comfort-food he had made for rainy days. All the swears he had used when people had been rude.

When I had finished eating, I went outside for a smoke again. This time, I went into the alley next to the restaurant to get away from the crowd.

And there he stood. Smoking a cigarette of his own. He leaned forward a bit, his shoulders hunched. As he breathed out the smoke, I could hear a sigh come out with it.

A side-door opened.

"We need ye back in here," someone said and Errol flicked his cigarette. As he turned to enter the restaurant again, his eyes fell on me. His face was frozen for a moment, then he smiled.

It was a different smile compared to earlier. Stiffer. Strained.

And somehow it looked more real.

I went into the alley. Placed myself so I leaned against the wall opposite of where Errol had stood.

As I smoked, I realised I couldn't go back into the restaurant to wait for him. It was suffocating waiting in there. But there were three hours left until midnight.

I walked back in to pay, only to be told the whole dinner was on the house. Then I just went around the city. Walked and walked and ignored my thoughts and the raging storm of too many emotions. So many I couldn't make out the individual clouds in the storm.

Anxiety.

Sadness.

Nostalgia.

Fear.

All the clouds covered the sky, mixing together into one giant mess.

And since I couldn't sort through them to grasp a single one, I focused my thoughts on something I could hold. On a reading assignment I had for my writing programme.

At fifteen minutes before midnight, I stood with a cigarette in the alley again. The minutes crawled while my cigarettes ran out far too quickly.

It was a few minutes past midnight when the side-door opened and he stepped outside.

"Wasn't sure ye'd be here when I heard ye left," he admitted as he took out his own cigarette. He unbuttoned his chef's jacket to reveal a white undershirt. It looked too cold, but I guessed the heat of the kitchen was still on him.

"Just couldn't sit still," I answered, and he nodded.

For two drags, we were silent.

"I'm proud of ye," Errol said.

The words echoed in my mind. The raging storm eased, and the clouds dispersed so only one could be seen. Happiness.

"Airlia told me about the writin' programme," he went on to explain his words. "I'm proud of ye for applyin'."

"For applyin'? Not for gettin' in?"

"The applyin' was what took courage."

In a second, my tears burst forwards. He had always seen me in a way no one else had. Not even Airlia saw me like Errol did. It was almost as if he could read my mind.

And true to being able to read my mind, he didn't say a thing when I started crying. He just let go of his cigarette and pulled me into a hug.

As if the Incident had never happened.

One of his hands was drawing circles on my back as I clung to him. My arms were under the chef's jacket, fist clenching the back of his undershirt.

My eye of the storm. He had always been my eye of the storm.

"We're a couple from the restaurant goin' to a pub," Errol told me when I had stopped crying. He still had his arms around me. My head leaned on his shoulder. He smelled of food, and I felt protected from everything. "Ye wanna come?"

"Alright," I answered with my eyes closed. Anything to spend some more time with him.

"Come on in then, an' I'll introduce ye to everyone." We let go of the hug, but he took my hand in his as he led me into the restaurant and his new life, and I dared to hope I'd get my best friend back.