Bambi Eyed || Katya x Reader fic

Chapter 18: Roadside Café

Your back throbbed sharply, jolting you awake the next morning. Okay, so maybe sleeping in the car had been a terrible idea. After crying for a few hours, dictating text after text to Brian, only to delete them before you could hit 'send' and finally muting his texts, you'd hoisted yourself into the backseat, balled up your jacket as a pillow and fitfully fallen asleep.

Clambering out of the car, you stretched and stared around at the highway surrounding the car. You were about halfway to where you needed to be, that was good. But you were beyond hungry. Less good. A quick google told you there was a dinky little roadside café a few minutes away. A weak coffee and rubbery eggs sounded like the disgusting remedy to your sleepiness, so you stretched your back one last time, slid into the driver's seat and blearily found your way in. The rancid cocktail of smells assaulted your olfactory senses; cheap coffee, oily bacon, the gas pumps outside and the desert sweat from the patrons. Weirdly, it felt like a comfort.

Sidling into a booth, you picked up the faded menu, the peeling laminate crackling in your hand. A young girl with curly red hair and a sunburn across her nose approached with a smile, raising her notebook dutifully. "What can I get for you?" she asked. Assessing the menu again quickly, you settled on a black coffee, asking to order food in a bit. "You got it," she winked, taking your menu and sweeping away.

With a slump back into the linoleum chair, you peered out the window. Desert stretched on for some time, the snow-capped mountains dotting the wavy horizon. You'd reach the filming location by evening, shooting really beginning tomorrow. It felt a mission, steeling yourself for this, pretending you were fine. But this is how you'd always coped, running away. Chewing the inside of your cheek and staring down to the tabletop, you frowned deeply.

Your vision was obscured by a cup of watered-down looking coffee and a freckled hand. Looking up to your waitress, whose name you saw was Aimee, you smiled. "Thank you," was your quiet offer. When she didn't move away, you shot a quizzical look her way. "Uh... do I pay now, or?"

She shook her head no, sliding into the booth across from you. "Something's troubling you."

Taken aback, you stared hard. "That was pretty matter-of-fact for a stranger," you remarked.

Propping her chin up on her hand, she held steady eye contact. "Uh-huh."

This was getting weird. "What do you want?"

She smiled. "Nothin'! Just wanna hear your trouble."

What a bizarre person. "What makes you so sure I'm troubled?" you asked pointedly.

"You have sad eyes."

Finally, you cracked a smirk. "That's just my face, Linda, I can assure you." Your phone buzzed on the table, and you saw Trixie's face. There went your smirk.

"Boy trouble?"

This perky little girl was getting on your nerves. Swiping your phone into your lap, you scowled. "If it were so simple, do you think I'd waste my time moping?"

She pricked up at this. "So you are troubled. Tell me about it!"

You weren't sure whether to be offended or intrigued by this creature, but what could this really hurt? Sighing, you swigged the terrible coffee, feeling the burn splash through the soft parts of your mouth. "I hurt somebody I love. And to stop doing that, I had to hurt him worse and get the fuck out of dodge. How's that for boy trouble?"

She nodded, waiting for you to continue. When you didn't, she sighed. "Does he love you?"

"I-," you stuttered. "I think so? What?"

"Well, it seems like you're just hurting yourself and him even more. Is it not better to have one big mess of a struggle right now, and get it all out in the open and heal from it than to have that feeling of 'what if?' for the rest of your life?"