Always Forever

Gadabout

Ralph walked to the diner in a haste manner, taking refuge in the bitter coffee served there. That would be his solace for the rest of the night, until he could go home. The twins were already in the kitchen working their shift since they didn't have to tutor a mischievous, flirtatious, contradicting, flustering greaser.

"Hey Ralph!" They twins greeted. Ralph downed another cup of joe and waved. He didn't know if his heart could handle another encounter with Jack at his job. Never-the-less he put his work uniform on and briskly walked to the counter. Another night of pesky people. He  stood in a comatose way and waited for customers to roll in. There were already quite a few, he guessed the other guy just clocked out. Another person strolled through the door, a couple. Both of them were socs. The girl blushed and giggled by the taller male's qualms. He watched and stuttered a quick greeting when they finally went in to sit. He skated to the table and asked for their preference. They wanted to share large fries and a strawberry milkshake... with a cherry on top.

He took that order and went back to the kitchen. He hoped he wasn't visibly crying in front of the whole diner.
"One large fry and a large strawberry milkshake with a cherry on top." He sniffled. He gave the order to one of the cooks trying his best to avoid the twins. He glanced to his side and noticed a fresh jar of maraschino cherries. Did he do the right thing? It wasn't long before the inevitable intruders of his personal life came to his rescue. Or at least one of them. Again..

"What's wrong now, chickadee?"
"I don't know...It's just..private stuff I guess." Sam gloomed by his side like a mushroom in the dark until Ralph finally spoke up again.
"It's...Jack." Ralph paused, "I don't really feel comfortable talking more into it." Ralph sighed and thought about who he could tell. After all, his mother always said it was never a good idea to keep all that sadness and confusion stuck in your brain. What if he told Piggy? He's a good person and would try to help...but he has no experience with love and would nerd out over him kissing someone before marriage. Or maybe Simon...He was generally quiet and could keep a secret. Lord only knows what goes on through that lad's mind. But would he understand? Ralph didn't think so, but it was his only chance to vent properly without feeling worried about the consequences. Like two twins yapping their jaw off to the whole group and cause it to be more of a commotion than Ralph really wants it to be, or Simon being stressed out by drama.

After a considering this for what was probably too long, he noticed that Sam wasn't standing by him anymore. He'd probably gotten tired of waiting for the boy to crack. Shortly after, Ralph was approached by a chef with the order he'd previously requested. He thanked him before skating back out into the diner and in front of the couple's table. They seemed a bit too busy to notice him; they had been wrapped up in what looked like a session of eating each other alive at the moment. Ralph awkwardly placed the food down and quickly left the situation, shuddering.
     He began looking around. There wasn't much business that day, apparently. On the bright side, there was no sign of a particular fire-headed boy clad in leather, but there wasn't much of anyone else either. Slow days were the worst; Ralph actually typically enjoyed skating around and greeting customers. If he had time, he'd hold conversations with them, and it was always great to see what they had to say.
Slow days were nothing but hours of watching the clock hands move slower than normal with nothing else to distract him. There was always the twins, and they were lovely, but they got to be overwhelming sometimes. Ralph took once last glance around the less-than-bustling diner before resigning himself back into the kitchen.
     Slowly, slowly, surely, the hours passed. Still no sign of the boy with constellations of freckles on the galaxy that was his face. That was good, Ralph never liked star-gazing, anyway. Until it was time for him to leave, he stuck himself in a loop: go into the kitchen; look for samneric; talk to them for a moment; get sick of it, go back into the diner; ask "how's your meal?" and receive an unenthusiastic "good"; go back into the kitchen. The clock struck closing time as he was about to enter the "get sick of talking and go back into the diner" phase for the eighth time that night, and Ralph didn't hesitate to pack up and clock out.

While untying the laces of his skates, he reflected on how the past few days have felt too temperate, either way too long to way too short. he couldn't tell which was worse.
     So, what now? As he walked out of of the building, he asked himself this over and over until he had an answer. Should he go talk to Simon and risk stressing him out? should he go talk to Piggy and probably end up getting annoyed with his tirades? Should he just hold it in and suffer like he'd been doing for too long? He looked up. The sky was clear; just indigo for miles and miles.
He looked back down and got into his car, which looked brand new as it always had. Pulling out of the lot and starting toward the street, he still didn't know exactly where he was going. He just... drove. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15... He kept going. Around the 18 minute mark he stopped in front of a house - Simon's. Yeah, he might bother the kid, but he couldn't never bother him any more than he'd been bothering himself for a quite a while. He stepped out of the car, shut the door, walked to house, and knocked.