Sharing meant asking.
This was intended to express consent.
This meant no one had to find out how much dinner cost when it was too late to decide whether they could afford it.
The strangest thing was that after that night the invitations started changing.
When someone suggested a restaurant, a question arose that had never been asked before.
“How do we split the bill?”
At first it seemed forced.
Then everything went back to normal.
And this normality was probably the most important change.
There was no longer an automatic glance in my direction.
There were no more jokes about the card with legs.
Expensive dishes no longer appeared out of habit.
People started making decisions based on how much they actually wanted to pay.
It took Chris longer.
One night, some time later, he asked me if I was still nervous.
“I’m not nervous,” I told him. “I’m just observing.”
