The dinginess of the diner was almost as bad as the motel we'd stayed at the night before. I felt like we'd walked in on the set of some old western movie, complete with a slow country song playing quietly from the jukebox in the corner.
The air was heavy with grease, reeking of burnt bacon and coffee. Not that I had a problem with bacon or coffee, normally, but, here, it was rank.
Bonnie halted, and I let the door swing shut behind us, my casual glances hopefully more subtle that her erratic, darting eyes.
I found the fire exit across from the entrance we were standing in, and happily noted that there was an empty booth right by it, an easy escape, if we needed one.
"Come on," I murmured, making for the empty booth, and Bonnie quickly fell into step beside me, shifting a little closer out of discomfort.
We'd drawn a lot of attention, a shit load more than I would have liked. People looked up from where they were when I'd opened the door for Bonnie, but most people's eyes had lingered long after, mainly the guys, and on her.
I'd figured she'd be used to being stared at, looking like that. She was more than a common beauty, the kind that was as startling as it was intriguing. I know I was used to being stared at, could feel it from across the safe side of the street, but she had ducked her head, let her hair fall over her face, and huddled close.
One truckie looking guy, seated on a stool at the counter, was oggling her, and not so subtly, his eyes hungry as they roamed over her, undressing her in his mind. I caught his eye and stared, narrowing my own, and he finally looked away, back to his coffee, then the ass of the young waitress who brushed by, clearing his empty plate.
"Don't worry about em, sweetheart." I slipped an arm around her waist, and stared down another guy who had been looking too long.
Fuck, maybe she was right and this was a bad idea. If anyone came asking, everyone here would remember us; the beauty and the beast, the little, flawless, porcelain skinned doll and the scar faced brute she was with.
Who would have thought being so beautiful could be such a curse? Every single guy in here wanted to own her, dominate her, and every girl wanted to be her, and hated her because of it. Their envy was loud, the way a held breath was, the total absence of sound, the silence like a roar. And it deafened her.
We slipped into the booth across from one another. Bonnie kept her head down, studying the graffitti scratched into the scarred table top. She looked up, though, when I nudged her with my foot.
"What's wrong?" I asked her, and she fixed me with the most incredulous look I'd ever seen.
"Would you believe me if I said nothing?" Her eyebrows drew together over cynical eyes, but she saved me from having to reply by throwing a subtle glance to the side.
Three waitresses stood behind the counter, young, about my age, pretending to work, but anyone paying any sort of attention could have seen the glares they were shooting Bonnie.
"Everywhere I go," she muttered, returning her gaze to the table top, "it's always the same."
"They're jealous, cause they're not pretty, like you," I tried to assure her, but she rolled her eyes.
"I know." She sighed, then shook her head. "That's the thing... just forget it."
She turned away from the waitresses, and fixed her gaze outside, at the carpark, distracting herself, I figured, by keeping a look out.
"It's funny," she murmured, the melancholy in her eyes showing she thought it was anything but funny, "how things changed."
"What things?" I wondered, watching her closely.
YOU ARE READING
Bonnie and Clyde
Teen Fiction'Monsters are real, as much as we want to deny their existence, and sometimes, when you close your eyes and wait for them to go away, they're still there when you open them again.' What would you do if you came home and found that your whole family...
