Danny sat down at one of the medium sized tables in the middle of the room. From where he was sitting he could see the table that they had refered to as Our Table. It was the small oval shaped table in the corner. The one that wobbled because one of the legs was a little too short. The table was just big enough to sit one person comfortably, but the two chairs allowed it to sit a couple intimately. That’s why they always sat there. That’s why it was Our Table. They could be close enough to smell each other. They could play with the wobble. They could be intimate in that innocent out in public sort of way.

Danny looked away from Our Table. She wasn’t coming to meet him today. He wasn’t sure where she was right now. Not after yesterday. It wasn’t a fight, but they left each other unresolved. Something was growing in between them. It was like a wall made of thorns. Everyday it grew a little bigger and harder to reach through. Danny could feel that damned wall tearing him from the girl he loved, he just didn’t know how to kill it.

But today wasn’t about her. Yes it was. These days it was always about her. Her and nothing else. She was the only thing that mattered to Danny right now. But right now he was waiting for Jack, not her. Jack was his friend. Jack was his best friend and they loved each other like best friends do. It wasn’t that passionate love, it was one of those other loves. Ask someone who speaks Greek and they’ll tell you all the words for love. It was one of those.

For now Danny waits. He absently sips at his tea. It has no taste. He doesn’t even realize he’s drinking. He isn’t really in the cafe anymore. He’s gone. He’s back in high school. It isn’t a specific memory that he’s reliving. It’s the feelings that are coming back to him.

Jack and Danny met each other their freshmen years in high school. They lived in different towns, but ended up at the same high school. Madison High had the best arts program in the state. Jack was an artist and Danny played the trumpet. They were assigned the same home room. It was best friends at first sight and within a week they were inseparable. The logistics of the friendship was hard at first. But that only made it more rewarding for the two. Jack was three months older, so he got his license first. After that they were always hanging out. Going to concerts, hitting the movies, trying to talk girls into going to the concerts and movies. They were a team that only God could separate.

God did separate them. Or maybe it was just time. They grew up and graduated from high school. They talked about going to the same college, but that didn’t work out. Jack ended up going to some fancy art college for a year before dropping out to study art for real. Not classroom art. Not art that can be caged in a museum. Jack thrived on art that was real. Art that screamed emotions at the viewer. Art that couldn’t be ignored. Jack went to Nepal to study with a mute woman. He said he was learning about art that wasn’t seen. It was felt.

The Nepal trip was when Danny lost track of Jack. They had emailed each other when they started college. It started as a couple of emails every day and a few phone calls here and there. Over the first year the contacts started to dry out. There was a flurry of phone calls when Jack decided to drop out and go to Nepal. Danny tried to talk him out of the trip. Danny was always the practical one of the two. But Jack could never be contained, so he left. Once every couple of months Danny would get a letter from Jack. Danny could tell from the letters that Jack had made the right choice, so he was happy for the starving artist who was living in a far off land.

Loosing Jack to Nepal was a blessing for Danny. That’s when he started paying attention to her. She had gone to high school with them and the three hung out every now and then. They just felt like friends. Freshman year of college changed that between Danny and Alison. They started dating. Then they started dating exclusively. Sophomore year came and they were in love, destined to be together for eternity. That’s the same year they became regulars at this cafe and claimed Our Table. A year later the two lovers had dinner and drinks at Our Table. That was the night Danny gave her a ring and asked her to spend the rest of her life with him. It had been the most wonderful night for both of them.

Danny glanced back to that table in the corner. It had been months since the two of them sat there. He no longer felt the right to call it Our Table anymore. It was that damned wall of thorns coming between them.

Jack was finally there. He took the seat across from Danny in silence. Neither of them had anything to say to each other right now. So they stared across the table. After a few moments Jack lowered his eyes and had a sip of his coffee.

When Jack got back from Nepal he was broke and homeless. Naturally he came to Danny for help. Naturally Danny didn’t think twice about letting his old friend live with him. That made life perfect for Danny. His best friend was living with him, he was about to graduate from college, and in the summer he was going to marry the woman he loved. He felt blessed. He felt invincible.

The feeling didn’t last for Danny. There was something in the air when Alison saw Jack for the first time since high school. It wasn’t anything tangible. It was just a feeling. All three felt it, but none of them said anything. To speak about it would be to give it strength. It was best just to let it wither and die like a potted plant that is never watered.

Alison changed to Danny. They still loved each other, but now there was something between them. It started out as practically nothing. Just a seed of discontent. But the seed grew. They started looking at each other differently. Danny would suddenly find fault with the little things that Alison had been doing her entire life. In return, Alison became critical of the words Danny used when talking about his feelings towards her. Nothing had changed but the way each of them interpreted the other. But in a relationship that’s all that really matters. Nothing had changed on the outside, but everything was changing within.

Jack looked up from the table. He wanted to say something. There was a heaviness in the air between the two. Danny sat there, waiting to hear what his friend had to say. Jack sighed and leaned his head into his hand. Neither of them could speak to each other yet.

For three months Jack had lived in Danny’s house. In some ways they had been good months. The two guys told each other about the great adventures they had gone through since high school. Danny laughed while Jack told him the story about spending a week in jail for insulting a politician. Jack still didn’t really understand what the crime was, just that Nepal’s jail system was something to be avoided at all costs. When Danny told Jack about the time he proposed to Alison the two guys shed a few tears of joy together. They would never admit it to an outsider, but that’s exactly what they did.

Then living with Jack became tense. Things with Alison became tense. The seed was growing into a bush. Danny fell into that bush one night after making love with Alison. She was talking about something. Danny couldn’t figure out what she was trying to say. When he asked her she just laid there. Then she gathered up her clothes and went home. They both cried alone that night. That was the first night either of them had really felt the thorns on the bush. They didn’t really talk about it of course. To talk about it would give it power and life. It was best to just let it die off and fade into memory.

Two weeks ago Jack decided to move out. He moved in with a co-worker or something like that. Danny didn’t really care where he went. He was sad that Jack was leaving, but happy at the same time. Now Danny would be able to work with Alison. They would be able to pour gas on that damned wall and burn it to the ground.

One week ago Danny got in a fight with Alison. He couldn’t remember what it was about or how it started. It was something petty and stupid, but they ended up yelling at each other. Alison had even thrown a paperback book at Danny. When things cooled off neither of them understood what had happened. They still loved each other. They still wanted to be with each other. They tried to make love that night. Neither of them decided to show up emotionally. It ended up being sex, not love. Both of them could feel it, but neither of them could talk about it.

They hadn’t gotten together at all this past week. She didn’t call Danny. Danny couldn’t call her. He started to doubt their abilities against the thorn wall. Maybe the two of them just didn’t have enough of a spark to set it on fire. He still loved her and he thought about her all the time. He was just starting to doubt that they were meant to be together forever.

Last night Jack called Danny up. He wanted to meet so they could talk. He said there was a lot of things he needed to tell his friend. He said it involved Alison. The two agreed on the cafe.

Jack uncovered his face and looked back up at Danny. They had been sitting there for over twenty minutes. Neither had said a thing. There was so much that needed to be said, but neither of them could overcome the wall of silence. It seemed to Danny that walls were popping up all over his life now. They had been sitting there too long now. Neither one of them could say anything now, even if they wanted to.

Danny was loosing the people he loved. First Alison, now Jack. He was loosing them in the worst possible way. If they had died in a car accident of been taken by some disease everything would be easier. He would go to the memorial service and there would be closure. There was no closure in what was happening here. They were drifting apart and it was destroying Danny. He couldn’t feel emotions anymore. There was no anger or sense of betrayal. If anything, there was only hollow grief. So hollow that Danny had a hard time feeling it.

Jack reached into his coat pocket and pulled something out. It was small enough that it fit in Jack’s fist. Danny couldn’t see what it was, but he knew it was something important. Danny looked up from the fist to meet Jack’s eyes. When they could see into each other’s souls Jack flinched as if he had been struck. A single tear rolled down his check.

Jack stood up from the table to leave. Before he turned and walked away, he opened his hand and let a ring fall onto the table. It was the ring Danny had given to Alison a little over a year ago at a table about ten feet away. A little oval table with wobbly legs sitting in the corner of the cafe.