Diverging

If I had set out to construct a horror chamber, full of all the things he hates, I could not have done a better job.

The walls were hospital-green, the air thick with talcum powder, liniment and stale popcorn. The chairs were cold and metal, and the band a throwback to decades long before we were born.

To me, it was a slice of Lake Wobegon. I watched prim octogenarians shuffle through the dances of their youth and couldn't stop grinning.

To him, it was sheer torture. But he stayed, and he smiled, for me. And I love him more because of it.