Twelve.

“I don’t know how to use these,” Madison pouted, fumbling with the chopsticks. Lately, it felt like I saw more of Madison than I saw of Polly. Maybe that was because of the yearbook club, or maybe…

“Hold this one sort of like a pencil. Now just take this one and set it…” I showed her with my own pair. “Right here.”

She got the second chopstick situated just as the first one fell from her fingers. I sighed and reached across the table, taking her fingers in mine, but Madison pulled back so sharply her saucer spun off the table and shattered on the floor. The echo of the plate breaking on the tile almost made her jump out of the booth. I rolled my eyes.

“It’s not a big deal, it’s just…” But it wasn’t just a plate. I could hear her breathing across the table, I could see the rise and fall of her chest. Her bangs had fallen in front of her glasses, but the tight quiver of her bottom lip showed underneath. Instinctively, I got up from my side of the table and climbed into her booth, but on the way over I stepped on the broken plate. It crunched under my shoes and a tremor ran through Madison’s body.

I froze. No. This was wrong. I was handling this wrong.

Slowly, very slowly, I sat back down on my side of the table. The waitress came over to make sure everything was alright, but I ushered her away with a request for a glass of water. She had to get a broom anyway. I leaned in close to Madison, over the table, but I didn’t touch her again. She had pulled her knees up onto the booth with her.

“Hey,” I said quietly, as softly as I could. It barely sounded like my voice. “It’s alright. No one is mad.”

“Sorry,” she stammered, resting her forehead down on her knees. “I was startled, I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, it’s fine. It happens.” Not to me, but to other people. To her. The waitress came back a minute later with a glass of water and started to sweep up the broken plate. I thought the clattering of the ceramic would cause Madison to jump again, but she didn’t. She just sat quietly with her head in her knees. I pushed the glass across the table.

“Drink something, you’ll feel better.”

“I doubt it.”

“Try.” It wasn’t a question. She tilted her head up and peaked out through a crack in her bangs I couldn’t see. It took her a minute, but she reached out and grabbed the glass and pulled the straw to her lips.

A moment later, our food arrived. I asked for two forks. After I had taken a few bites of my noodles, she started to unfold and do the same. Neither of us said anything for a long time. I wished I knew better. I wished I knew that silence was the worst thing I could give her at a time like this.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said under her breath. Her eyes were soft and quiet and they couldn’t meet mine across the table.

“I don’t think I can help it,” I told her, trying to be honest.

“I don’t need you to worry about me.”

“Friends do that, though. Don’t you worry about me?”

She looked up from her food, at me, and then back at her food. Wait, did she actually worry about me? Was this one of those questions she wasn’t going to answer? The silence was killing me!

Finally, she said, “You don’t eat enough.”

…I didn’t eat enough? I stared blankly at her for a moment, silently, and then… I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I knew she was serious, I knew this wasn’t a joke, but it just happened. It poured up out of me from inside my chest. And then I couldn’t stop. Her cheeks inflated in frustration.

“It’s not funny! I’m serious!”

I kept laughing, nodding, trying to agree with her, trying to find the seriousness in me. But damn.

“Stop laughing!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” When my laugh finally started to fizzle, I could see that Madison was frustrated with me. She stabbed at her plate with the fork so that it made sharp sounds. Every time, she’d wince, but she’d do it anyway. She was so contrary, so damn cute…

“I really am sorry,” I said again, when I knew I could say it without laughing. “I really am.”

“I don’t see what was funny,” she said sharply, annoyed. Madison Bell: annoyed. Someone should write an article about it in the paper.

“I just never would have guessed.”

“Guessed what?”

“That you… thought about me so much.” I flashed a small, nervous smile. She stopped eating. Maybe the pinkness in my cheeks was infectious, because she started to change color right in front of me, like a mood ring. Her soft, quiet eyes weren’t so soft or quiet anymore. I felt warm all of a sudden.

“Well… you’re my friend, aren’t you? You said friends do that.”

“Then I can worry about you, too?”

She took a minute to think about that one, and finally, reluctantly nodded.

“If you keep letting me buy lunch,” she said, “then you can worry about me sometimes. But only sometimes!”

“Only sometimes,” I agreed and put my hand on the table, palm open. I wasn’t going to take her hand again without asking, not for a while anyway. She reached out and touched the tips of my fingers with the tips of hers. Then we went back to eating and said nothing else about it.