God. Kill me now. Hal thought to himself. The woman sitting across him opened her mouth in a wide grin, salad bits stuck between her teeth.

He barely concealed his grimace.

“You’re not eating anything?” She said between large bites of her food.

I think you are, for the both of us, he almost said.

“I had a huge lunch. I’m not that hungry.”

He answered.

She slurped her diet coke, snorting as she tried to control her laugh at his reply.

Did I say something funny? He wanted to ask, but decided against it.

He had spent the past half hour listening to her regale him with stories of her achievements, social life, family, cat, dog, parrot and her damn hamster chippy.

His friend was going to die for doing this to him and the bastard wasn’t even calling to check up on him, like they had agreed.

He was going to make a run for it. There was nothing else he could do. One, two, three..

Her phone rang. Saved! At last. Uh oh. Why is she crying? No, please no. She turned tear filled eyes to him and said,” There’s been an accident, its chippy. Can you please take me home?”

“I’ll put you in a cab?” He tried.

“No, please.” She sobbed.

“Okay. No problem.” He answered.

Chippy is going to be the death of me. He thought asking for the check.