Mending Ryan Falls ✓

2 | in which he watches her break

Kidnap me from my reality,
And crushed pieces in my soul,
Color me outside the lines,
Until my shattered heart is whole.

.\.|./.

Ryan Falls

|in which he watches her break|

It makes no sense, really, whatever the hell he's saying.

Rubbing my forehead with the tips of my fingers, I listen to Mark complain about my good looks. Yes, that's right. My boss has a problem with the way I look because girls stand in line for way too long and make the customers complain. I don't really know how I'm supposed to fix this. Maybe wearing a Pennywise mask on my face will help. Who will come to Creekside to buy coffee then will be a matter to discuss.

"That's it. You're serving tables from now on."

I look up at Mark's bespectacled face and raise my eyebrows. "Sure. Would you like me to wear a sack over my head too?"

The way his pale cheeks blush tells me Mark isn't particularly impressed by nonhumorous levels of sass. He's a man who takes things far too seriously for my liking. Despite the fact that I have been working under his supervision for nearly two months now, he still doesn't know that when I say 'fuck logic', I mean he's being illogical, not that I want him to fuck the young rapper named logic.

This alone is enough to tell me Mark and I can never live under one roof. Or even work under.

"There are tables waiting. Go get their orders."

With that final command, Mark pushes his wooden-framed spectacles higher on the bumpy bridge of his nose and spins around with such speed that his nonexistent long hair metaphorically slaps me in the face. I almost wish I was standing in front of him rather than sitting on the dingy wooden stool he had pointed me to when he summoned me in the chiller slash store-room. Seeing as how I'm one whole foot taller than him, he might not have looked so intimidating staring up at me with his hooked nose.

Sighing because I need this job and I'm too much of a nice guy to walk up to Mark and stuff my ugly white shirt down his throat before walking out to the background of applause, I rise slowly to my feet and walk out of the swinging door and back into the bustling cafe. I snatch one a notepad off the counter and dig out a pen from the drawers before scanning the place and making my way over to the quietest corner.

My eyes remain fixed on a couple seated near the window, a blonde girl and a white-blond guy who hisses something at her under his breath. His blue eyes flash in her direction as she shakes her head and says something I can't hear.

Maybe I should stay away from them for now.

Deciding they're better left alone, I turn my attention towards a slightly older man at the table next to the couple's. The man with tired brown eyes and mousy brown hair is attempting to scribble something onto sheets and sheets of paper, which I realize are some kind of application for an insurance policy.

I glance at his untouched sub and the still-full ceramic cup in front of him. The man hasn't even touched his food and steam has stopped emanating from his previously scorching coffee, a thin sheen of cream floating lazily on top of the deep brown liquid. 

"Would you like me to bring you something else?" I ask the man who looks up at me with hazy eyes.

He stares and blinks a few times as if trying to verify I'm actually real and not a figment of his imagination. I'm used to being stared at now, to be honest. My tanned skin and chiseled jaw don't belong in Alaska, neither does my head of dark-raven hair and the muscles still present from three years of heavy workout. My body makes me stand out -- the LA boy running from his LA roots -- until hiding becomes impossible.