The first of many buts

She said to me with her eye brows lifted and glasses tipped low on her nose, "Boy, have I got a lesson to teach you." Both of her hands spread on the table - such stubby fingers for a beautiful girl.

I sat there butting into every second word. "But...", "... yeah but", "I'm sorry but". I didn't realise I was being rude. I could hardly help it, I don't think she even heard me speak. I didn't even have to be there. She was speaking for herself, a one man show, and no one had to be there but herself. These words they flowed as if she was coming to her own self-realisation in those very moments. But (I apologise that I have begun this sentence with a but, connecting nothing to this) her words, holy mother of god, holy mother of all things sacred and, and fuck, those words they had be going, they had be tearing, they had me. What I'm trying to say, I mean what I've been meaning to say is that what she said was too honest to have just sprung out of her mouth and arrived at my ears just then and there. I realised that she had known this for a while now, I could tell after that hour that each word had a weight.

She kept speaking as if I had no last name; untraceable in a world of Smiths.