Already Know

The tables at that place are close.

You learn to pretend.

The woman next to me said it quietly—

her hand flat on the table between them,

not reaching, just resting:

I stopped asking because I already know

what you'll say.

The other one was looking at the menu.

Still looking at the menu.

I had my own food in front of me.

I looked at it.

I don't know what they were talking about.

I've been thinking about it for four days.

Not because it was dramatic—

no scene, no raised voice.

Just the phrase, said flat,

on a Tuesday night.

The precision of it.

Not guessing. Not assuming.

Already.

The kind of knowing that arrives

after you've asked enough times

to have the answer memorized—

like a bus route,

like the number of steps

from your door to your desk.

She didn't sound angry.

She just sounded done

with uncertainty as a way of living.

The other one put the menu down.

Said something I couldn't catch.

I paid and left.

Walked out into the cold.

The hand kept coming back to me—

flat on the table.

Not reaching.

Just resting there,

as if reaching was something

she'd stopped doing

at some point I hadn't been there to see.