All I Can Do

“Jonathan!”

Jon turned around from his booth in the hospital cafe to see Alisa rushing toward him. She didn’t look happy, but she wasn’t upset. Her brown hair was now in a loose ponytail, and her eyes looked tired. Jonathan smiled at her as she slid into the spot across from him.

“Hey!” He greeted happily, “How’d things go with Pat?”

She frowned and shrugged, slumping forward a little bit, “It’s clear he doesn’t want me around.”

Jonathan sighed. She tried to keep them together; she was going to move home for him. There was so much effort put into making Patrick happy and fulfilling her dreams, that eventually, one side had to let go. It was Pat. He started ignoring phone calls, going out with other girls, sleeping with other girls. She couldn’t keep them together from so far away.

He sipped his coffee and looked at the sad girl, “It’s probably hard for him to see you again.”

Her eyes drifted down and she picked at the menu, biting at her bottom lip, “It’s just as hard for me to see him.”

Jonathan nodded and reached over to pat her arm in a comforting manner, “I know. How long are you planning on staying?”

She shrugged again and rubbed her palm over her forehead, “I don’t know, I love him Jon. I know it sounds bizarre, but after all of this time I’m still in love with the big idiot.”

Jonathan laughed, still the same girl. She and Pat never hate sweet nicknames for each other like ‘baby’ or ‘hon’; it was more like ‘Bastard’ and ‘douche’. It was reassuring to know that though all of that, and past all of those cities that separated them... they were still the same. He liked them together; they were perfect, yet totally un-perfect at the same time.

“He’s just bitter, still,” Jonathan explained, although it was evident, “Give him some time, he’ll get over it.”

Alisa nodded and looked over her menu, then brown eyes looked up at Jon’s, “For as much as he did say,” she began, “He mentioned Farren and what’s going on.”

Jonathan bit his cheek and nodded, he felt slightly disrespected that Pat had told somebody, but then he remembered leaving him alone with a girl he’d grown to hate, “Yea. I don’t know, there’s something about her.”

Alisa’s lips twitched up slightly, but as soon as he saw it, she went back to that same, sweet expression she usually wore. Jonathan shook it off, he was imagining things, Alisa hadn’t been here in over a year, and she couldn’t read him as easily as she once could. He sighed, deciding on what he was going to eat.

Alisa folded her menu and dropped it onto the table with a triumphant grin, “I’m getting waffles.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow, glancing at the clock; it was nearing 4 PM, “Waffles? It’s four.”

Alisa nodded, “So? We’re in a hospital; they won’t deny somebody their comfort food.”

Jonathan laughed at the truth to that. He decided that he too would order waffles. He watched the teenage boy glance oddly at them as they told him what they wanted, but did not refuse. He watched Alisa’s face light up when he walked away, and she had successfully ordered two waffles. She let out a laugh, and threw her head back.

He remembered what Pat had said to him one day, a few weeks after she’d left.



“There are just so many things she does,” he sighed, putting in his head in his hands, “Stuff that other girls just don’t know, you know? Little things, that I can’t get out of my fucking head.”

Jonathan reached over to pat his friend on the shoulder, “Like what?”

Pat lifted his head and shrugged his curls messy and eyes tired, “Like the way she laughs,” He started, staring out at nothing in particular, “She arches her head back, like it’s the funniest thing in the world, and nobody else does it like her.”

Jonathan sighed, it would be rough. He didn’t think moving on was in Pat’s future any time soon.

“What?”

Jonathan came back to reality and looked at his friend, who was sipping on her sprite, giving him a weird look. He just smiled at her, shaking his head. There were certain things that you kept between friends and no matter what, Patrick was his brother.

“Nothing,” he laughed lightly, “Just thinking.”

She nodded, and her eyes drifted past Jonathan to something in the distance, “I miss this place.”

Jonathan frowned, “The hospital?”

Rolling her eyes, Alisa shook her head and shot him a look, “No. Chicago, its home.”

Jonathan leaned forward on his elbows, watching her sink deeper in her thoughts, “I don’t think Chicago’s home,” he said quietly, as she frowned, wondering what he meant, “I think Patrick’s home.”