"Stop trying so hard is what you said to me
What you said to me."
Lex
Luke was a really nice guy. He kept up with all of my craziness and we had just met, and that said quiet a lot about him. We had to take another taxi cab to get to the diner, and luckily it was only a few blocks away from my house.
We got there and I sat Luke at a table.
"Wait, here," I told him and turned around and headed to the kitchen.
The moment I stepped in, the hollering started.
"Lexi baby brought a boy. Mi niña ya creció," Ramona, the diner owner, said. "Sunday morning dates. Una cosa beautiful."
"Can I get my apron?" I asked kind of embarrassed. "And...I only just met him. At a bar."
"You were at s bar? Cristo santo," she said doing the cross sign over her chest.
"She grew up in like two seconds. We last saw her on her Friday," cried her husband, Manuel. "Crecen tan rápido."
"Can I get my apron?" I asked again trying to avoid the weird conversation. Ramona laughed and walked over to where all of them hung and the across the kitchen to me. "Thank you."
I waved and walked out. Luke was sitting backward from the kitchen so he couldn't see him. I went up and stood next to him. "Good morning, my name is Alexandra and I will be serving you today."
He turned his head towards me turning of his phone and smiled, and soon his smile became a laugh, and since the place was so quite it filled with his laughter –a warm laughter, and I smiled too. And then he started choking and it was turn to do the whole thing he had just done. And then I also chocked.
I saluted him and walked back to kitchen, I didn't even give him time to say anything.
"Two orders of pancakes with bacon and two chocolate milkshakes. I'll pay it."
Ramona hushed me and pushed me out. "It is on me, baby girl. Ve a robarle el corazón." She just told me to steal his heart.
Smiling I walked again to where Luke was sitting and sat in front of him. Once he again, he put his phone down, to give his whole attention to me.
"You work here?" he asked.
And then I launched into a whole story about the job. I got it during my first summer in California, after my freshman year. I stayed at Juliet's apartment so I didn't have to go back home because it was expensive, since she was giving me a place to stay I wanted to help with the food and the house supplies. So one day I went off the Mexican market to buy food for a meal I was making as a thank you to Juliet but I got lost and started crying and cursing in Spanish. Ramona found me and helped me out, and ended offering me a job at her diner, which was created and attended by Mexican people. And that was the story of my job.
"Every summer I come here, to earn a couple of bucks, since my scholarship obviously doesn't include summer in Los Angeles or plane tickets for your family to come to your graduation, which is like, in eleven months. I need to save enough for three plan tickets. Luckily Juliet said they could stay here at the apartment."
"You haven't seen them in three years?" he asked surprised and shook my head. "I can't imagine that. I spent most of my time out of the country but I get back to see them. I am sorry."
I shook my hand harder. Before I could speak Manuel came to place the order in front of us. I thanked him in Spanish and took a sip of the milkshake as he left. "Don't pity me, please. There are worse situations than mine. What I want to do is go back home for six months or so, and then move to Germany, get a nice job and make all of their debts disappear."
He tapped his fingers on the table as he chewed on his pancakes. "How big is the debt?"
I shrugged and ate my first bite. "They don't want to tell me. But, I know it is all traveling expenses, admission fees to all the schools I applied, and the things my scholarship doesn't cover. So I guess, it is a lot. Education in the U.S. is expensive."
"You should tweet Nikki Minaj," he said all serious.
"I am gonna tweet to my ass and tell him to go to work at the pole."
"He?"
"My ass is a he. His name is Michael," I said spreading some Nutella over the pancakes.
"Will I very meet him?" he asked getting cheeky. I laughed and we kept on eating.
He told me about his friends, who were staying with him on a rented house on L.A. since they were there working but also taking a break, a vacation. He described their current state as a permanent vacation. I said it was too complicated; he said that the frustration and desperation lead him to that state of mind.
"Maybe you need some kind or medication, or to see a shrink. It really works for me," I said cleaning the Nutella of my plate with my fingers.
He sighed and looked down to his now empty plate. "The situation is that we had no motivation, we really wanted to change our music style. I mean, we started when we were sixteen, and now I am twenty-one almost twenty-two...so we decided to live a life of permanent vacation. It is hard, though. I know I can't live my life like that, I mean one day I'm gonna grow up and-"
I interrupted him and grabbed his hand. "If there's something I've learned after so many shrink visits, therapy and medication is, if you actually can have control over your thoughts, think about the present, never the future. Focus on the happy. Find a song that brings a flood of happy memories, or a movie you can watch a hundred times and never get tired." She breathed in deeply and spoke once again. "Stop trying too hard."
Luke
There was no doubt that she was a very down-to-Earth person, and I really liked that. The way she gave me the advice, full of care and worry even though we had just met; living a life like mine, finding a person like that, was hard.
She released my hand after giving me the advice, and just in that moment, her phone started vibrating. She picked up and I heard her say Juliet's name just as she stood up, signaling she was going to be gone for a few minutes. Her friend definitely worried about her a lot, but I guess she was the only person she had in America, besides the diner's owners.
While she was away, I finally took in the view of the diner. They had awards for Mexican food contest, or just best dish of the year. But they also had portraits hanging; big family portraits of look-alike boys and girls. Lex was in no one of those, she was in individual portraits, where she appeared holding awards, diplomas or with medals hanging from her neck. There were around ten of those. I stood up to get a closer look at them but Lex came back and tapped my shoulder.
"Juliet wants me to get home, like right now. She said I left the house twenty hours ago, and that my rule of showers every twenty four hours is going to be broken because I'm not home."
"Do you want me to call a cab to get you home?" I asked.
"I can walk; it is only three blocks away. I need the exercise," she shrugged and made her way to pick the table. "You can walk with me, if you want," she said before entering the kitchen.
I did a jump of victory in my place, and laughed. I took the phone out of my pocket to call the guys to tell them the awesome news. The phone rang, and just as the boys picked up, Lex walked out of the kitchen and I hung up on them.
"Vamonos. Juliet gave me twenty minutes to get home, I already lost five."
We walked out of the diner and I pulled the hood up once again in the hopes that nobody would recognize me. She just pointed out how the weather was so nice, because I wasn't hot, and I sweating like a pig, so I took the leather jacket and only kept the hoodie.
Since her house was only three blocks away it took us around fifteen minutes to get there, the exact amount of time her friend had given her. I going to accompany her to the door, but if her friend was there and she was a fan, she was going to recognize me. So I stayed outside the apartment building.
"Can I have your number?" I asked nervous and pulling out my phone.
She smiled and pulled out hers. "Sure. Just, let me check the number. I can never remember it properly," she laughed. She gave me her number but did not ask for mine. "I will be waiting for those texts, Lucas."
"Luke," I said pretending I was annoyed.
"Whatever you say, Lucas," she said as she turned around and entered the complex- I watched her small figure disappear into one elevator. I smiled before turning around and leaving.
I walked into our rented house in Santa Monica finally taking of my hoodie, and my t-shirt along with it, since I was melting under it. I knew the boys were still asleep because there wasn't a mess on the kitchen. I was ready to go back to sleep so I went there to get a glass of water.
With my glass, I walked to the back of the house, which had a perfect view of the ocean. It was relaxing, if I focused long enough I could pretend I was in Australia. I loved the salty smell on the hair, the breeze on my skin and small waves crashing against the shore. It was so peaceful, until I heard Michael screaming profanities at me as he walked out to join me.
Soon Ashton and Calum were there too. I sighed. The tsunami of questions was coming. I answered before they could ask something.
"Lex. No. Yes. I don't know."
"What?" Michael asked.
"Her name is Lex. He didn't sleep with her. He did get her phone number. He doesn't know if they will go out again," Ashton said. "I guess he was expecting the questions."
"Yes, I was," I replied taking a sip of water.
"She seemed like a very wild girl," Calum said. "I mean, did you see how she drank those shots?"
"I think it's in her blood, it was her first time doing shots, but she's Mexican, so, yeah."
"She's a wild Mexican?" Michael asked, and I rolled my eyes at his stupid words.
"No, she's a nerd who was wearing Harry Potter fan merch under her leather jacket, and studies at CalTech, although I am not pretty sure about what CalTech is exactly."
In no seconds, Ashton had pulled out his phone and was soon typing away. He had googled it. "It is one of the top universities in the U.S. Its rate acceptance is under ten percent." Ashton made an 'o' shape with his mouth and gave the phone to Luke. "You are surely dating a smart girl."
"You guys are overreacting. She's just a normal girl, like us."
"Wrong," Michael exclaimed. "She might be normal, but we aren't. We can't walk out with having girls chase after us."
Michael was pointing out a truth, an obnoxious truth. She was normal and we were all making little details big, but we weren't. We toured the world, rarely spend more than two days in the same city when we were on tour, and girls chased after us everywhere. It was normal against abnormality.
"Michael has a point," Calum pointed out. "I mean, it will be hard to have a serious relationship with her. She's not like other girls we have dated, who can travel with us, who live the same life as us."
I sank in my chair. "Wait a sec, guys. She didn't even point last night as a date, we haven't even gone out a second time. We just met each other, and I mean, I am attracted to her but I can't say I like her or love her, this is not instalove,"
It was their turn to roll their eyes and lean back in a chair. Hands behind our head we all sat there to stare at the ocean, trying to relax all together. Sometimes when we were in a disagreement, we wouldn't talk about, we would normally sat in silence together, trying to calm down our vibes before talking again to settle the matter. That was what we did.
I would say we sat there four around twenty minutes in complete silence; we didn't even pulled out our phones or anything. It was time to reflect about how we felt to talk about it later; that was the reason why we managed to avoid big conflicts that could break the band apart.
"You are right. We are rushing things. We are overreacting," said Calum. "And I am sorry about the fact we reacted like that, I guess we are used to it. Fast relationships, you know."
"But, you're right," I said. "It is going to be hard, but let me at least give it a try."
Then we sang together, because sometimes we used our songs instead of talking. "'Cause I am trying, I am trying, and I am trying too hard."
We laughed.
"But seriously, do you think it going to work out?" Ashton asked me worried. "I mean, after Arzaylea and Sierra..."
"Sierra and I didn't work out even before we started," I stated. "I don't know. I think she's a little bit out my limit, but I'll try."
"Try to not break her heart," he said giving me a weak smile. "We worry about you, but most times it is not us who get the heart broken."
I nodded my head and closed my eyes. The last concert had been tiring.