I listened to the soft roll
of the gears in the elevator,
the girl we had just met
baring a smile,
"So you're the boy I hear
all the stories about?"

He replied with a smile and nod
as if it had not bothered him,
his reputation
the source of his pride
rather than a subject of disgust.

Now she turns to me
as I can feel my chest
grow tight,
"And you're still with him?"
she asks
with a bat of her eyelids.

I give out a fake laugh
and that was all,
for the girl we had just met
had said to me
what I had been avoiding,
the one fault
in the boy that I had loved.