Had she never left, I would still be here. Be here in a way I recognize. I'm no longer in my body, though. I'm not the man at the counter with his left eye twitching uncontrollably. With the fluorescent rod flickering above his head as if it were trying to keep up with his twitching eye.

I ask the man wearing the paper hat for another cup of coffee while I continue to disengage. To lift off. To float away from that jittery, empty man I see below me. I don't have the heart to look at him anymore, so I look at the brown, transparent stream of hot coffee pouring into his white, shiny cup.

"You're giving me that look again," she told me. Her lips had formed a line. A line that was thick and purposeful and dark pink like one of her brushstrokes.

My hands swept over my face. "I'm sorry. I do that when I'm tired."

I keep floating away. How far could I go? Where am I going? The man with the paper hat gives me a nod before taking a boy's order. I swear the boy looks exactly like I did when I was fifteen. I feel a chuckle in my throat. The boy gives me a look. I avert my gaze. He must be tired.

I keep floating. As I float, I analyze. I dissect. I try to make things right in my mind as I pull away from my body. As I break off from myself.

"You're so infuriating," she told me. "Look at you. Just look at you." She stuffed another shirt or another scarf into her bag.

I lifted my eyebrows. Or perhaps I lifted my hands?

"I don't know what else you want me to say," I was pleading with her at this point, but I wasn't sharp enough. I had lost the point completely. "I've been up for days. I love you. I would die for you."

She dropped her bag on our bed and froze. I swallowed. She blinked and approached me slowly. We hadn't been that close in days. I felt dizzy. I wanted to touch her face and kiss her, but I also wanted to push her onto the bed. I wanted to lie on top of her. I didn't want her to float away.

I'm soaring now. All the heads in the diner look like black, brown and beige dots. Alive and tiny. Some are alone. Some are huddled close, and others are saying horrible things to each other like, "I don't think I love you anymore," or "I can't make rent this month. Can you cover me?"

I drink my coffee black. The way she likes it. I suffer without any cream or sugar. 

She was so close I could smell the cough drop she had in her mouth earlier. There was a glimmer of love in her eyes before she spoke. It could easily have been pity, too.

"Don't say things like that." She rested her hand on my chest.

I wanted to smack her hand away. I wanted to wrap my arms around her. In fear that I would cry out for her, I did nothing. Doing nothing made her hurt even more. I could see that as she picked up her things and left.

For whatever reason, my eyes keep going back to the boy's head. He's the lightest shade of dot I see below me, like an angel floating, surrounded by scattered buoys.

His fork and knife cuts lines into his fried egg, and as the yoke bursts and seeps forth, I am so far away I can barely see the speck of yellow. I rub my thumb over the tiny yellow dot, and just like that, it's white again.