“You don’t like it?” He asked, pouting a bit.

“No, no, it’s not that,” I explained. “It’s just my stomach again. It’s good, I promise.”

“Are you going to be alright?”

“Yeah,” I replied, smiling. “I’ll be fine.”

He took me out to dinner that night for the very first time. It was a promise he made me when we were teenagers; that we’d go out to dinner to have “authentic pizza” as he put it. Because, apparently, anywhere but New York is “fake.” He also wanted to take me for a hometown special as he would say, even though it’s not even native to his hometown. “It’s roasted –– or, uh, deep fried pizza. A whole pizza. Like, a deep fried burrito, but pizza. And it’s huge.” That was his explanation for it three years ago.

“You barely ate anything though,” he said, a worrying look drawn on his face.

“I’ve always been like this,” I said, trying to comfort him. He would always worry about things like this. “You’ve known me for, what, 4 years now? I’ll just take it home and eat it later. Don’t feel bad for something you can’t control.”

“Too bad,” he said. He always said that. No matter what, if he was sorry or if he felt bad and I told him not to, he would reply with too bad. He always cared too much about me, which I guess was kind of attractive. But I felt like more of a burden than anything.

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