Eat My Heart Out

“Can you believe how few non-meat meals they have up there?” Frank says in a ridiculing, outraged voice, before he sits down next to me.
“I think I need to pack my own lunches from now on,” he says and presses himself close to me, as if to hug me with his side. He opens the plastic box containing a tiny salad and rummages his fork through it.

I tear my eyes away from the tiny meal and take a bite of my sandwich.

“So, how was everyone’s weekend?” Ray asks with his mouth full. He doesn’t know about Frank. He knows how he used to be, but he doesn’t know about his problem.

I don’t even know if it’s still a problem.

“I became a vegeta-“

“I know,” Ray interrupts, “you already told us that.”

I really hope it’s not a problem anymore.

But then again, I want him to need me.

But I want him to be healthy.

Fuck! I’m so contradicting. I want to save and protect him from something I don’t even want him to ever get near again. I want to keep him close and safe from something that might never try to attack him again. I want him to need me.

But what does he want?

He wants to be a vegetarian. He wants to stop eating poor, defenseless animals who live under crap conditions just because we need them for our diets. He doesn’t want to be needy.

But I want to be needed.

“Gee, come on,” Frank says into my ear and pulls me closer to him.
“Wake up.” He kisses my cheek and I look up. Ray is wrinkling his nose at us, but smiling at the same time.

I glance down, breaking free from Frank’s lips, before I turn to face him.

“What?” I ask on an exhale. Behind Frank, I can spot Bob shaking his head at me as he smiles.

“Nothing,” Ray laughs. I look around at everyone, confused out of my mind, but no one seems to wanna tell me what I missed.

I guess it wasn’t important.

“You’re cute when you’re confused,” Frank says and pecks my cheek quickly. He then turns around to face Mikey and they start talking about something I don’t bother listening to.

The plastic box is empty, apart from the plastic spoon.

He promised.