I never asked.
That's the part I think about now. I never once asked what he was writing.
He'd take it out and write something down.
***
The jokes started slowly, the way most cruelty does.
"Lunch with your boyfriend again?" someone said one afternoon, grinning like it was the funniest thing they'd thought of all week.
I laughed because that's what you do.
"Charles is better company than you," I said, and went back to my sandwich.
But it didn't stop there.
It became a thing.
The jokes started slowly.
People would glance toward our table and smirk.
Someone left a fake "reserved" sign on Charles's chair once as a joke.
Someone else asked me, with mock concern, if I was worried about my "career trajectory" sitting with the janitor every day, like proximity to him might rub off and get me promoted to mop duty.
I laughed off every single one of those comments.
