They took the meditation labyrinth. A guy and a girl, both sporting college apparel, lounging against the rocks in the middle, believing they are secluded. A whole winding pathway separates them from the world, though in reality their paradise island is completely visible from a bench just fifty feet away.
Perhaps they just had lunch, though if it is the case, then they are spreading the flavor and remnants of masticated cold cuts between their tongues. He leans over her, propped up on a locked elbow, his college shirt barely containing his college pudge. She leans back, a straight-haired, bespectacled Aphrodite, covering up her non-sexual voluptuousness with a band shirt and her ill-fitting high school jeans, her sneakers holey and drawn on. She either doesn't have the money to buy new ones or she wants to continue displaying the creative expression of her 11th-grade anime friends who took it upon themselves to color on her clothing, even though, at the time, she hated the idea.
His phone is balancing on his knee. Not far enough out of place to have put it there for safe-keeping while kissing his girl. A phone call is expected—not from her. This is killing time while he waits to hear whether or not his grandmother survived her late-onset appendicitis and the subsequent surgery. The girlfriend is a welcome distraction.
Her hand is on his face, despite the fact that he hasn't bothered to run a razor across his cheeks in six days, and she hates stubble. He hates lipstick. She used to glide on red every morning, but now she tries to be happy with what she sees.
Her phone is buried in her backpack. It doesn't matter to her right now. Her hands are only on him.
His phone rings and immediately he pushes himself up into a sitting position. His strained shirt sighs with relief. He takes the call. She was a distraction.
She watches his expression with her hand on his knee. He is her everything.
