Chapter 2
She woke up the next morning to the unending sound of buzzing coming from her phone. Somehow in the last 5 or 6 hours every one in her contact list had heard about the botched robbery and was texting her to see how she was. Including a text from her boss asking her if she would still be okay to make it in for the morning shift. She rolled her eyes at this but then realized she had slept through her alarm that went off an hour ago.
She jumps out of bed and gets ready for work as quickly as possible, opting for baby wipes instead of a shower. When she picks up her uniform shirt she can see the sweat marks from the night before under the sleeves. She takes a deep breath, pushing down whatever memories she has from the last time she wore it. She sprayed the whole uniform and herself with a bottle of air freshener from her bathroom and put it on hastily. Slipping on two different lengthed socks from her drawer and her non-slip shoes she rushes out of the apartment. On her way to work she put her hair into a ponytail, the shorter pieces of hair immediately falling out. The diner is close to her apartment, only a few blocks away, which doesn’t give her much time to mentally prepare for what it’s gonna feel like to be back inside.
When she gets there the usual morning rush of customers is replaced by only a small group of regulars who couldn’t be bothered to change up their routine after a minor attempted robbery. Fred, a man who's been coming for the last 15 years every Saturday morning sits at his usual spot.
“Are you okay?”
John, a coworker, asks her with a look of concern on his face as she’s clocking in. She turns to face him, making sure she has the appropriate smile on his face to let him know she’s okay and more importantly to stop asking questions.
“I’m fine. Really. Nothing happened. I mean- I’m okay.”
“Good. That’s good to know. I am surprised to see you here today though. I thought you would want to take some time off.”
“I can’t take time off. The world is still turning. I would rather be here than home alone anyways.” She regrets saying that last part as soon as she sees the concerned face turn to pure pity.
“Anyways.” She walks away to get to her first table of the day.
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She’d been working for about 30 minutes when two men in suits walked in and sat down at one of Kirsten’s tables by the window. One of the men, brunette with a cane and sunglasses, held on to the arm of the other man, both men held briefcases.
She quickly dropped off the plates balancing on her hands to another table before going over to the two men.
“How can I get you two started?”
“Do you have any braille menus?”
She froze, immediately recognizing the voice, bringing back a feeling in her gut, something sick and all too real.
When she looked at him, it confirmed something deep in the back of her mind. The mouth. They were pink and supple and perfect. Her mind flashed back to that night. The man with his eyes covered with the mouth and the voice. And the eyes.
“It’s you.”
She didn’t mean to say it out loud. And at the way his face whipped towards her she felt way too many things at once.
It brought up flashes of that night, the pit in her stomach growing larger, but his face, his presence, though at first sight triggering, was an anchor, he was safety.
The man smiled at her. A similar smile to the one he flashed at her the night she met him, and it just confirmed it even more. But an attention grabbing cough from the man across the table from him pulled her back to reality, the one where she was supposed to be taking their order.
“Sorry. Um. What was- how can I help you?”
“My partner was asking if you had a braille menu.” The other man interjected. A bit defensively.
“Oh. Right. Let me go check. If not, we have the menu on our website too, which works with a screen reader.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“Uh. Huh.”
She tried to stay present, but it was hard. She couldn’t stop looking at him.
“Can we get two coffees?” A disembodied voice said.
“Yep. Let me go get those for you.”
“Thank you.”
She walked back to the kitchen, feeling delirious, she searched through a pile of menus in the back, pulling out the one braille menu they had, a bit outdated, from the bottom of the pile. She got the two cups of coffee and carried it all out back to the table. As she set down the coffees they sloshed around, some coffee spilling onto the table.
“Sorry about that. Let me clean that.” She grabbed a rag out of a pocket in her apron. “Sugar and cream to your right.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll give you two some time to decide.”
She walked from their table to the small claustrophobic restroom. Leaning up against the wall she tried to steady her breath and her wracked nerves. She was overwhelmed in every sense of the word. And before this moment didn’t know she could feel so many conflicting emotions at once. How she could be scared and relieved and turned on all at once. It almost made her feel gross about herself. But she needed to be normal. Needed to go back to her customers and get through the shift. And soon he will eat his food and leave and I can move on and try to forget about him and forget about that night. Except I don’t want to forget about him. And if I was free to do whatever I wanted without consequence, I would follow him wherever he went next. Follow him and find out everything I can about him. Figure him out. What and how and why and where and when.
Her mind isn’t any more clear as she opens the door to the restroom to go back but when she leaves the threshold she is unexpectedly greeted by the man. Her heart skips many beats and all of the heat rises to the tips of her ears.
“Hi.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” It felt to her like his sentiment had multiple meanings. She wondered if the man knew what she knew. If he even recognized her.
“Do you-” oh no. Her thoughts weren’t supposed to be said out loud, phrased to him as a question, but not because she didn’t want to know, desperately. “-do you remember me?”
“Excuse me?” Something in him changed. Lie, or maybe not lie, but he’s playing dumb.
“From the other night. I asked you to stay.”
His facade dropped. He grabbed her arm and moved her farther down the hallway so no one could see or hear them.
“You can’t tell anybody. Okay?”
The fear feeling started to override the other emotions, intermingling with the heat forming in the lower half of her body.
“Sure.” he didn’t seem so confident in her response. “I promise.”
A pause.
“Okay. Can I go now?”
The man realizes he’s still gripping onto her arm and lets go.
“Yeah. Sorry.”