June is just out of high school and thinks that she knows what is best for all of her friends. This is the first time that we’ve gone out as friends and she never got to know me very well before that.

“Football is lame and boring. Lifting weights hurts.”

I shovel some hash browns into my mouth and follow with a gulp of coffee as the spoon in my cup clinks to the magnet on the left side of my eye-glasses. Since I was raised in my family’s restaurant, I love food and to cook. We had a diner in the business district of my hometown in Michigan. My dad, who turned 90 last month, still bakes dozens of cinnamon rolls and homemade bread every day.

“No pain, no gain? OK, thanks for the warning. Why are you obsessed with being normal when you have to do everything the hard way?”

“I am normal.” She didn’t get my point. “And if you were normal, we might still be together.”

If I were normal, I would never have gone out with an under-aged Russian alcoholic.

“If I were normal you wouldn’t have liked me in the first place. So what if I enjoy reading books and playing video games more than I like being outside?”

“More than you like drinking?”

“No, more than you like drinking. You know who got me drunk my first time?”

She walked into the den where I sat watching TV and I will never forget her words that day. She leaned down to hand me a shot of peach schnapps and whispered in my ear, “Hunny, let’s just forget about last night.” She kissed my forehead and walked away.

“Me! You don’t have to make it sound like I’m the alcoholic here.”

“Sorry.”

“I bet I could kick your ass,” she chuckles and half looks up from her purse with as evil of a grin as she could manage.

Her green eyes are her only facial feature that is completely natural. They are healthy still. I couldn’t speak after that and my eyelashes were soaked as I pretended to chew my food.

“You bet I’d like it. Too bad, you’d hurt yourself if you tried. Go smoke another cigarette.”

She angles loose a blue plastic card, a pack of Marlboros and a disturbed cell phone that she flings back into the abyss without concern. “It’s funny we thought of that at the same time.” She pays on her way out.

I finish eating, pay, and wash my hands, recalling that instead of breaking up with her, I made her love me even more, stringing her along like a wooden puppet on a string until I could finally crush her. Yes, men can be evil.

Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” had just finished the chorus as I knock the men’s room door open with my foot.

“So hard to find my way, now that I'm all on my own.”

“Maybe someday,” I say to myself.

I sit outside on a bench across from June as she puffs on one of the cardboard-filled sticks. My body hurts for hers as the flame brightens with consumption, though I wouldn’t say it aches.

“John?”

Here comes the reason I was asked to be here.

“What if I don’t do well in college?” It was not a

question I had expected.

“You are a business major. They reward mediocrity.”

“Shut up. Be serious. I’m worried that I won’t do as well as you.”

“I’m an engineering major. You don’t need to do as well as me. Get it?”

“I want you to keep helping me.”

“I’ve heard that the hardest part about the business program is Calculus, and you are as good with that as I am.”

“I’m not as good.”

“The last two years of my life have been anything but difficult. They were filled with reacting, not analyzing. Professors expect you to pay attention or read the book, sometimes both. It’s easier than high school, trust me.” I really don’t want to help her. I was pretty sure a half-hour minutes ago that I never wanted to see her again.

“Fine, but you’ll still help me, right?”

“Sure. You have my number. Besides that, you haven’t even taken a class yet.”

“OK, thanks. That’s fair.”

My arms press around her shoulders as I try to feel good about my decision. We get into our cars, she drives away, and I never see her again. I often think about this conversation, not because I didn’t believe it or not know it but because it was said plainly in a room with another individual confiding in me what she saw. She was the first person I decided not to help because I just plain didn’t like her. I’ve not helped people because I hated them; I’ve not helped people because I didn’t have the time; I’ve not helped people because I was unable to.

“Who can you help if you don’t want to help your friends?”