Her
Ding ding. The young man carrying a backpack opened the door and walked into the small McDonalds down the street from his little apartment. Hesitating just long enough to allow a lady about his age to slip in, he let the door close and turned around to survey the restaurant. The young man paused a second to check for the Fruit ‘N Yogurt Parfait on the menu before making his way to the line to place his order. Picking up his parfait, the young man asked for a cup of water, to cheap to order a coffee or soft drink and made his way to a seat at the front of the shop by the window.
Dumping his backpack on the ground, he sat down and carefully set the parfait and cup of water across from him on the other side of the table. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a Yoplait yogurt along with a spoon to eat it with and an egg and ham sandwich he had made at home before coming. Noticing the reminiscent of a previous customer’s early morning meal, he brusquely swept the crumbs off the table.
Sufficiently satisfied with the cleanliness of the table, he sat back and let out a short laugh. Oh how the tables have turned, he thought. He used to not have cared if the table was dirty; she would have always been the one to “keep things tidy”. He noticed how hungry he and started devouring his meal. He would have normally saved the yogurt for later after eating his sandwich, but he found himself greedily digging for the last few morsels with his spoon. He gathered up all his trash pushing it aside to make room for his laptop which he pulled out of his backpack. A clean-up lady walked over and kindly scooped up his trash. Noticing the empty seat and the uneaten parfait, she asked, “You waiting for someone, honey?”
He nodded.
“Something like that.”
Not sure what to take from that, she walked away with his trash dumping it in a waste bin.
Something like that… waiting for her even though he knew she would never come. I shouldn’t waste time on this stuff, he thought. I got a lot of work I to. But as hard as he tried to concentrate on his laptop, he couldn’t help but think of her. Thinking of how they used to sit here at this very same table never able to get any work done. Thinking of all the places they’d go after.
“Screw it”, he murmured. “I’m feeling too sentimental for this crap today.”
He powered down his laptop and sat back closing his eyes. For some reason, he was reminded of his childhood, every Friday night sparring at the makeshift dojo on the second floor of a church at end of each session. She had been there too, he recalled, then 7, one year older than him. He remembered the first time they sparred, his instructor screaming in his face, “Keep your hands up, keep your hands up!” and all the others kids sitting against the wall panting, out of breath from their own previous fights. That time, his instructor had patted him on the back telling him he’d done well as he moved to sit down, though doing nothing to change his firm belief that he’d been pounded by a mere girl.

He saw himself three years later, matched up with her again. All reserves about fighting her on the pretense that she was a girl were long forgotten, beaten away by her unrelenting and unforgiving fists. The relieved faces of the other students at not having to face her onslaught still fresh in his mind; he skipped and dodged frantically struggling to stay out of her range. Time passed and he still stood, having avoided her for the most part, able break away from her each encounter. Circling each other under the watchful eye of their instructor, he saw an opening and lunged, his knuckles smashing home on the padding protecting her body. He danced away only to find himself unable to move, discovering to his dismay the end of his gi wrapped in her right hand rendering him unable to escape; her other hand free, she punched him again and again. Though the force blunted by his padding, he felt nothing but an unending battering, the voice of his instructor in his ear as if far away, screaming at him to break free.
And with each impact, one after another, he felt himself sinking further and further into an abyss of hopelessness, his wavering spirit engulfed by her oppressive aura. Accepting the futility of escape, in a panicked surge of strength of strength, he threw the last of his strength into a final desperate attempt and lashed out ferociously. Throwing himself at her, they became nothing more than two opposing forces, locked in an eternal struggle whaling at each other. They were beyond exhaustion, their sight obscured by sweat, conscious of nothing, all thoughts of restraint long gone. And all of a sudden it was over. No further blows came and he felt the wall against his back as he found himself sitting down, his fight finished and nothing but the coloring of her padding stained upon his knuckles to remind him that it ever even occurred.




For the next few years, she disappeared from his life, only seeing her on Sundays at their Chinese church in Maryland where his focus was on learning of and worshiping his God, not scanning the pews for wifey material. Sure he liked girls and had become close with several during middle and high school, but each time anything real formed, he would run away, too scared to make a commitment. It wasn’t until college that he noticed her again. He wasn’t the same timid little boy but now a young man, a freshman in college with radical ideas, fearlessly ready to take on the big world. Graduating from high school a year early, he had wanted to get as far away from home as possible, tired off his mom’s restricting hold over his life. It was at Baylor University in the greatest coincidence that he found her again, she herself changed from the tom boy who felt it necessary to constantly prove herself capable of holding up with the guys to the elegant young lady who found herself at a college in the South for the very same reason as him.
And for the next four years, they became the best of friends, brought together by their common background. They suffered through exams together and supported each other through the hardest of times, yet they also had fun and wild times together from making late night/early morning Denny’s runs on Fridays to just simply going to church together on Sundays. But it was here at this McDonalds that they shared the best memories after moving off campus in junior year to their own separate apartments. It’s funny that they would come to a place as unhealthy as McDonalds every morning since they were both somewhat fitness fanatics, scratch that he actually didn’t really care, but they found that it was the closest and most convenient place for both of them. And so for the next two years, they made it their thing to meet up here each morning and start off their days. She would always get a Fruit ‘N Yogurt Parfait because it was the only thing on the menu that she felt was mildly healthy enough to consume.
However, despite all the time that they spent together, they never dated. He tried to convince himself that it was because she reminded him to much of the hard-headedness of his mom, but it was really because he could never summon up enough balls to ask her out and more than that, all his life he’d been running away from commitment and permanent relationships. Given enough time he probably would have beaten himself into shape and started a relationship with her, but he never got the chance. A couple months before graduation while he was back at home visiting his family, he got a call and found out that she had been hit by a car biking off campus. One moment she was here, and the next, gone forever and nothing but the memories of how she touched his life to remind him that she ever existed…
“Nothing but memories,” he murmured as he opened his eyes.
He remained sitting as he found himself back in the present still in the McDonalds, just like he’d been doing for the past 8 months, hoping that by some miracle she would walk in and sit across from him as she always would. He was stuck in the past, lost and lonely without direction in the big world that he used to think he was so confident in.
“Hi, sorry for bothering you, but is this seat taken?”
So lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed the young woman standing in front of him. Hesitating a second with a look of internal struggle in his eye, he relaxed, all signs of conflict gone from his face.
“Nope, the seats open. I’m Ben by the way.”