AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Delilah is moving on with her day because just as she didn’t second-guess her decision to call off the engagement, she will not second-guess that bullshit call.
She goes to the bathroom and brushes her teeth while admiring her hair in the mirror. Her hair is vibrant—too vibrant, according to her boss. In the past few weeks, Delilah needed a change, ignoring the voice in her head urging her to end things with Victor. Dyeing her hair was simpler. Fewer tears involved. When asked by the hairdresser what she wanted, Delilah asked for the aurora borealis treatment. The combination of pink, purple, green, and blue needs some touch-ups, but that can wait until next week after she catches up on assignments.
She returns to bed and opens her laptop. Breaking up with Victor last night before his shift pulled her away from her own work, a season premiere recap she’s writing for Infinite Weekly, where she’s been working as an editorial assistant since graduating from college this spring. She’s not a Hipster House fan, but those hipsters are more clickbait-y than the Jersey Shore crew, and someone has to write the pieces because the editors are busy covering the respected franchises. Delilah is well aware how lucky she is to be given the grunt work, and to have a job at all considering she’s the new hire who missed several deadlines because she was preoccupied planning a wedding with someone she’s only known for fourteen months.
Delilah turns on her TV to re-watch the painfully absurd premiere—a challenge in a crowded Brooklyn coffee shop where the hipsters have to cowrite short stories on a typewriter—and before she can switch to her DVR, a Fox 5 anchor shares something truly newsworthy, given her interests.
“. . . and we’ve reached out to his agents for word. The twenty-five-year-old actor may have played the young antagonist of the blockbuster Scorpius Hawthorne films about the demonic boy wizard, but fans all over the world have been sharing nothing but love online for Howie Maldonado. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for immediate updates on this developing story. . . .”
Delilah jumps out of bed, her heart pounding.
She isn’t waiting around for this developing story.
Delilah will be the writer who reports the story.
MATEO
5:20 a.m.
I approach the ATM on the corner while Rufus watches my back. My dad thankfully had the common sense to send me to the bank after I turned eighteen so I could get a debit card. I withdraw four hundred dollars, the max limit at this ATM. My heart is pounding as I slide the cash into an envelope for Lidia, praying someone doesn’t come out of nowhere and hold us up at gunpoint for the money—we know how that would end. I grab the receipt, memorizing how I have $2,076.27 left in my account as I tear up the slip. I don’t need that much. I can get more cash for Lidia and Penny at another ATM or the bank, when it opens.
“It might be too early to go to Lidia’s,” I say. I fold up the envelope and put it in my pocket. “She’ll know something is up. Maybe we can hang in her lobby?”
“Nah, dude. We’re not sitting around in your bestie’s lobby because you don’t wanna burden her. It’s five o’clock, let’s eat. Potential Last Supper.” Rufus leads the way. “My favorite diner is open twenty-four hours.”
“Sounds good.”
I’ve always been a superfan of mornings. I follow several Facebook pages about mornings in other cities (“Good Morning, San Francisco!”) and countries (“Good Morning, India!”), and no matter the time of day, in my feed there are pictures of glowing buildings, breakfast, and people beginning their lives. There’s newness that comes with the rising sun, and even though there’s a chance I won’t reach daytime or see sun rays filtering through trees in the park, I should look at today as one long morning. I have to wake up, I have to start my day.
The streets are really clear this early. I’m not anti-people, I just don’t have the courage to sing in front of anyone. If I were alone right now, I’d probably play some depressing song and sing along. Dad taught me it’s okay to give in to your emotions, but you should fight your way out of the bad ones, too. The days after his admittance, I was playing positive and soulful songs, like Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are,” so I wouldn’t feel hopeless.
We reach Cannon Café. There’s a triangular sign above the door with an illustrated logo of a cannon blasting a cheeseburger toward the café’s name, with French fries exploding wayward like fireworks. Rufus chains his bike to a parking meter and I follow him inside the fairly empty café, immediately smelling scrambled eggs and French toast.
A tired-eyed host greets us, telling us we can sit wherever. Rufus passes me and goes all the way to the back, settling into a two-person booth beside the bathroom. The navy-blue leather seats are cracked in various places, and it reminds me of the couch I had as a kid where I would absentmindedly peel the fabric off until there was so much exposed cushion foam that Dad threw the couch out for our current one.
“This is my spot,” Rufus says. “I come here once or twice a week. I get to say stuff like ‘I’ll have the usual.’”
“Why here? Is this your neighborhood?” I realize I have no idea where my Last Friend actually lives, or where he’s from.
“Only for the past four months,” Rufus says. “I ended up in foster care.”
Not only do I not know much about Rufus, I haven’t done anything for him. He’s been all about the mission of shadowing me on my journey—getting me out of my home, going to and getting me out of the hospital, and soon coming with me to Lidia’s. This Last Friendship has been very one-sided so far.
Rufus slides the menu my way. “There’s a Decker discount on the back. Everything is free, if you can actually believe that.”
This is a first. In all the CountDowners feeds I’ve read, the Deckers go to five-star restaurants expecting to be treated like kings with courtesy meals, but are only ever offered discounts. I like that Rufus returned here.
A waitress comes out from the back and greets us. Her blond hair is pulled back into a tight bun, and the button clipped to her yellow tie reads “Rae.” “Good morning,” she greets us, in a southern accent. She grabs the pen out from behind her ear, and I glimpse a curly tattoo above her elbow—I’ll never grow into someone unafraid of needles. She twirls the pen between her fingers. “Late night for you two?”
“You could say that,” Rufus answers.
“Feels more like a really early morning,” I counter.
If Rae is actually interested in my distinction, she doesn’t show it. “What can I get you two?”
Rufus looks at the menu.
“Don’t you have a usual?” I ask him.
