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Derek sipped his coke and sat back in the booth.

“What about it?” I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. Everybody says that sort of thing.

“You keep saying that there are a million fish in the sea, and while I can appreciate it from a self-soothing angle, relying on statistical probability to say ‘yeah, I’ll get a girlfriend and a relationship that makes me happy eventually’ seems like a weak argument.” He said.

Derek liked to be facetious and normally that was something I liked about him, but I really wasn’t in the mood for it. I liked Derek, though, so I decided to let him have his piece.

“So you think that because there are plausibly many, many women out there that would date me, and I happened to run into one who actually did, I can’t say it’s probable it’ll happen again?”

Derek winced. “Many, many? It’s a bit optimistic, no?”

I puffed the wrapper off my straw at him and dropped the straw into my root beer. The wrapper flew off course and sailed into the next booth over, landing among a gaggle of teens, whose jeers I did my best to ignore.

“No, what I’m saying is that you’re sitting back and doing nothing, and relying on this idea that there are plenty of women who WOULD date you. How many dates have you actually gone on in the past year?”

I squinted at Derek before sipping my root beer, which had already soaked into the paper straw and made proper suction near impossible. “First, it’s not been a year since Juniper, it’s been ten months. Second, I don’t feel that I’m really ready to date yet, which doesn’t mean I don’t feel crushingly lonely, or wish I was in a relationship.”

The waitress came over with our orders. I had gotten a Reuben, classic diner food.

Derek on the other hand, got an unreasonably tall burger, which, on the menu’s picture, was kept upright only by the Herculean effort of a steak knife that had been undoubtedly hammered through the thing.

“I just don’t know how you can eat like that.” I said, watching him chisel pieces off of his burger.

Derek was only 135 pounds. At 6’3, this left him looking on the unhealthy side of skinny.

Despite that, he’d always eaten like a man twice my considerable size.

Derek smiled at me through a mouthful of burger. “Ith a mahher ‘oh wihpowah”.

I wan’t sure how he’d managed to get his lips together for the “P” sound, and decided it was better not to pry.

He swallowed and looked at me, suddenly serious. “I know you’re struggling, maybe even doing your best. I get that. But you’re still not seeing the big picture. You’re 19, not even 20 yet. First year of college with a decent career ahead of you? Get the fuck out of your own head and live your life. You’re spending too much time thinking about yourself and what other people think of you.”

“I’m not sure that’s true” I replied after I processed that for a moment. I was feeling defensive.

“It matters what other people think of me because that’s how I define myself.”

“But why define yourself by what other people think of you?” Half his burger was gone. I’d only had a bite of my sandwich.

“What other people think of you doesn’t really matter. You’re your own person, or at least you should be. You can’t be somebody else’s pet, or follow around somebody you idolize with moony eyes, not if you hope to live a fulfilling life.”

“Because, Derek, we live in a world defined by other people, and if not them, then their actions. Governments, businesses, arts, literature, it’s all people. Everything’s derivative of everyone.”

I was feeling properly cornered now. Derek knew my identity was a soft spot for me, and prodded at it occasionally. It was never mean spirited. I had snapped at him once about it and he had told me that he just liked jostling it so I couldn’t get too comfortable with it.

I continued talking while Derek chewed and looked at me. God, he reminded me of a cow, blithely chewing cud and looking wherever they damned well pleased.

“I don’t actually see being a pet as such a miserable reality, assuming it’s a decent person who owns you and they take care of you and love you.” The argument had taken on a lewd tone while I spoke and I blushed a little bit.

“My point is this” said Derek. “You’re too content to live your life in response to actions. You’re always letting somebody else move first, their preference, their opinion, their action, your reaction. You like structure, you like working in response to things, it’s why you’re a decent student. But it kills your ability to interact with people.”

“I don’t think that’s a fair argument to make.

And what the hell do you know anyway?” I was upset now, chewing with vigor and swallowing much too fast for my own good.

“First, don’t make this about me.” Derek tipped his head back and drank his coke down to the ice. “Second, We’re narrative stand ins for our author’s feelings, I know everything about you that he does. And we both know he hasn’t written out my perspective at all, and that he thinks it’s too late to do it now.”

I nodded, trying my best not to choke.

“Second, I don’t think that you do this all the time, only that it’s a habit of yours. You do it so often that you’re far worse at acting than you are reacting. And if it isn’t that, it’s that you’re constantly second guessing yourself.

Where’s the confidence, man? The machismo, the energy?”

I had finally managed to swallow and had finished with deep lungfuls of air.

“I left it at your mom’s house.” I croaked.