I smile before I can stop myself. It feels strange—smiling at a stranger, in a diner, at midnight. I don't do this. I don't talk to people I don't know. I don't sit in public places and let myself be seen. I'm Gabriel Mire, and my last name is a weight I carry everywhere, and most people look at me like they're trying to calculate whether I'm worth the risk.
She doesn't look at me like that. She looks at me like I'm just a person. Like my last name doesn't matter. Like I could be anyone, and she'd still be standing here, pouring coffee, asking questions.
"I'm Gabe," I say. The lie comes easily. It's not even a lie, really—just an omission. Gabe is a nickname. Gabe could be anyone.
"Monika." She points to her nametag. "Welcome to the diner, Gabe. Try not to get stabbed."
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing. Inside joke." She turns away to check the coffee pot, and I watch the muscles in her back move under her uniform, and I feel something shift in my chest. Something I don't have a name for.
"You're a student," I say. It's not a question. There's something about the way she holds herself—the tirednessaround her eyes, the way she checks the clock like she's counting down to something—that reminds me of myself during finals week.
"Was," she says. "Not anymore."
"What did you study?"
"Pre-vet. For a while."
"Veterinary medicine?"
She nods. "I wanted to be a vet. Had the grades, had the experience, had the hands." She holds them up—those steady hands, the ones I've been watching through the window for four nights. "Didn't have the money."
The words land somewhere soft. Somewhere I didn't know I had.
"That's what I want," I say. The words come out before I can stop them. "Medicine. I'm... I'm in school for it. Pre-med."
She looks at me differently then. Not with pity—I would have hated that—but with something that looks like recognition. Like she sees something in me that she sees in herself.
"It's a hard road," she says. "Even when you have the money."
"Yeah."
"Worth it, though. I think. If you can make it."
"I'm going to make it."
She smiles. It's a small smile, tired at the edges, but genuine. "I believe you."
I don't know why that matters. I don't know why the approval of a stranger—a diner waitress, a girl who doesn't know my name or my family or the things I've seen—should make my chest feel tight. But it does.
"What about you?" I ask. "If money wasn't an issue. If you could go back. Would you?"
She's quiet for a long moment. The coffee pot hisses behind her. The cook scrapes the grill. A car passes outside, headlightsslicing through the window, and I watch the light move across her face.
"Yeah," she says finally. "I think I would. I think I'd still want to save things."
"Things?"
"Animals. People. Whatever needed saving." She shrugs, like she's embarrassed by the admission. "It's stupid. I know."
"It's not stupid."
"How would you know? You don't even know me."
"I know that wanting to save things isn't stupid." I hold her gaze. "I think it's the opposite of stupid. I think it's the only thing that isn't stupid."
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she laughs—a short, surprised sound, like she didn't expect to find something funny in the middle of this conversation.
