7.28

I lean over the table, staring out across the lake, eyes squinted against the glare and the potential shame about to roil across the table to me. I have only been asking questions, but I have been asking questions with hard edges, words what cut their way through too much and reveal the underneath. I'm not sure my companion was ready to be revealed. I think that at any moment it's just as likely as not that the careful façade of confidence between us, this edifice of rank or title or whatever else you or we might care to call it may become more cumbersome than it's possible to believe, and we will be forced to rebuild its foundations, as we are incapable of shedding its weight. I shift in my seat, not to get a better angle of protection from the glint of the sun on the lake before us nor because I am uncomfortable, exactly, but just to have something to do. My companion hasn't spoken in an uncomfortable long time—two seconds of dreary silence. For the two of us, in this place, with this relationship, and under the burden of this compassing pall of confidence, two seconds is forever to go without saying the next witticism. I am shifting in my seat to brace against the answer, if it comes. I know that my question carries with it an imposition and an implication, of power lost and wrong done, and I just want to know what happens thirty seconds from now so I can prepare what I can say ten seconds from now so I can feel confident again two seconds ago.
My companion clears his throat.  I realize I have been holding my breath.