#KILLME2

Chapter 7

#KILLME2

By: theinkslingerr

Chapter 7

Freshman Year

    I grabbed the diner's menu off the table, making a face and pulling my fingers away when I realized it was sticky.

    "I'll get you a new one," a girl who wasn't my pothead waiter offered.

    I was at Osman's; a generic diner at the end of Main Street complete with black and white checkered floors, green vinyl booths, and a jukebox that only worked half the time. When I wasn't loitering at the mall or movies, I was somewhere on Main Street— even though it kind of annoyed me. As one of Brookside's most crowded places, it was packed with bad vegan and Asian fusion restaurants, shops, and other bored people. A lot of those bored people were generally college students since there was one nearby. It was a small community college, and according to my dad "the place ambitions went to die". He could be such a snob sometimes.

    Main Street was also the only spot in town where parallel parking was a thing, and it was okay for speeding bikes and punks on skateboards to play with your life as well as their own.

    That's why I always walked.

    It was the last day of summer vacation, and I'd walked the twenty minutes from my house to Osman's under a setting sun straight out of a water color painting. I'd had a huge fight with my dad over the phone, because he wanted me to come live with him and go to a safe school instead of Brookside High. After my mom snatched my phone away and accused him of trying to take everything from her (including me), I left the apartment and wandered aimlessly. Eventually, what seemed like a decent goal came to mind: I could go to Osman's and finally try to finish the Big-Bellied Farmer's Breakfast! The notorious artery-clogging meal known to put people in food comas was served all day, but I'd never been able to finish it before. I figured now would be a good time to try, because if I was in a food coma I wouldn't have to think about how I was still angry at my dad for leaving. And how part of me did want to live with him, because I was scared of starting ninth grade at a school where a girl had just been murdered.

     By the time I got to Osman's and slid into a booth, I was hungry and stressed, so I appreciated the customer service angel currently offering me another menu. I wanted to decide how to modify my Big-Bellied Farmer, and order a freaking drink.

    The thing was she wasn't in a uniform like all the other waiters, so for a second I was confused. But if she was confident she could get me a menu that wasn't covered in old maple syrup, who was I to argue? The dark-haired girl walked behind the counter, reached under it, and grabbed another laminated menu.

    "After you give that to her, you can go ahead and wipe the rest of them down," the plump woman working the register instructed in a heavily accented voice.

    The girl grumbled something under her breath, but replied yes before handing me the menu.

    "Thanks."

    When she smiled, things got weird. The longer I stared at her, the more she kind of looked like...Selena Gomez. With thicker eyebrows. She also looked vaguely familiar in the way everyone did when you lived in a small town. With a flick of her wrist, two square packets landed on the table, and she winked. "No problem." Then she went back behind the counter, dug out a huge stack of menus, and took them past a door that read Employees Only.