Wallflowers

10 juin

madame leroux hired me as a waiter at her café for less than minimum wage. she said it was all she could afford and i believed her and thanked her for even paying me at all. i told her i would have worked for free and she squeezed my hands and smiled kindly.

my feet are blistering red and blue from the cheap "fancy" shoes i bought for the job and my wrist is sore from the weight of a full coffee pot. the sweet kid baker aforementioned by madame leroux is a large, scary looking man with sleeves of tattoos climbing up his shoulders and beginning to mingle with the single large one on display across his back. i know there's one on his back because he wears 'shirts' that are basically a thin dish towel with oversized neck and arm holes cut out of it. the first time we met he shook my hand so hard my fingers turned slightly purple. his name is antoine. he laughs very loudly.

nina flew to mexico for her dad so i am alone in an apartment with jean. the situation makes for a lot of awkward conversation about mild topics then making up excuses to stop talking and leave. léo has come back seven times to spend the night with jean and i haven't slept properly in a week. i run solely on espresso shots that come out of my paycheck and the thought of nina coming home next tuesday night.

each time i see léo leaving jean's room he tries to make small talk so i've avoided it by waking up before dawn and going into work early. antoine turns on the radio and dances while he cleans and dusts the baking pans with flour before madame leroux shows up fourty-five minutes later to open the café. he taught me how to make the perfect cupcake and i've gained three pounds since i began to work there.

léo didn't come home with jean tonight. i took the opportunity to try and sleep but my brain has set 3:46 am as its official bed time. jean knocked on my door at midnight and asked to talk. he smelt like a carton of beer and sweat. we sat for ten minutes before he broke the silence.

"i miss nina," he said.

"me too. she'll be back soon enough, though."

"yeah, but when she comes back, she'll be all weird," he shrugged, scratching the back of his head.

"what do you mean?"

"well, nina's family is nice and all, and she loves them, but they can be ...difficult. they like a lot of drama and they don't really like the fact that she's gay. it's just hard for her to deal with them, hard for anyone, really."

"when we talk on the phone she never complains about them. she mostly just talks about how much she missed mexico and misses her dad," i told him.

"you talk on the phone?"

"uh, yeah. i use the phone booth in the market."

"oh." i guessed that nina hadn't tried to contact jean at all since she's been away. i feel guilty since him and nina were so inseparable before i came into the picture and started hating myself for coming between them.

we sat in another gape of silence before he excused himself to go to sleep. i don't know how or why everything became so terrible within this apartment but it was and i felt it washing over me in waves and waves.