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Chapter Three
Luna
“Hi, I’m Dena,” the girl in the waitress uniform says, quirking a smile and thrusting her hand out at me on my first day at work in the diner. “Welcome to Mike’s Diner.”
“Thanks.” I shake her sweaty hand, and adjust my little frilly white apron around my waist. I didn’t count on uniforms, to be honest. I mean, I’ve served tables before, but we only had to wear a white shirt and black pants, not short black skirts, aprons and white collars.
Destiny. The place where time stands still.
“I remember you, you know,” she says brightly, and I cringe, moving behind the bar and straightening the stack of menus.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You got teased a lot.”
I cringe a bit more, die a bit inside. “True.”
“I thought you were cool.”
I blink. “You did?”
“You were top of your class. And wore whatever you wanted, never gave a damn. That was cool.”
Actually, I did give a damn, but trendy clothes were too expensive and hard to get in my size, so... I pretended I didn’t care.
Where were you, I want to ask, while I was teased and bullied to tell me how cool I was? Where were you to drag me out of the black pit that was swallowing my soul, and my confidence? If you admired me so much, if you’re telling the truth, where were you?
But I don’t say that. Nobody owes me anything.
Instead, new me smiles and nods. “Thanks.”
Fake it till you make it, right? Pretend to be confident until you are. Pretend to be the best there is, until you are.
The fact that I’m still pretending the same things I pretended three years ago hits me hard, but I do my best to shove it to the back of my mind.
Customers come in, and I grab the coffee pot and do my rounds, serving coffee, taking orders. The routine is soothing, and if I was uneasy at first in the little short uniform—I mean, it’s not like I turned into an anorexic supermodel overnight and I may be more confident now but let’s not exaggerate—I’ve pushed it now to the back of my mind and focus on doing my job.
Just for the summer, I remind myself. Just a couple of months. Surely I can pull this off. I’ve come this far. It’s a chance to see Josh, and Dad, put away some money and decide what to do
next.
How to run away once more, you mean?
Shut up, I tell the voice in my mind. You know nothing.
“You okay?” Dena shoots me a concerned look. “You’re, like, talking to yourself. And glaring at the glasses you’re drying.”
I glance down at the glasses, throw the rag on the counter. “I’m fine.”
“Good, because I need to take a smoke break. Will you be okay on your own?”
I wave her off, press my lips flat and get back to drying the glasses. New me, remember? I won’t backtrack, won’t regress. I came here with a promise to myself not to lose my confidence again, not to find myself crying in the corner again.
So I deserve to be here, in this diner, in this town. In this world. I’ve fought hard for it. Cried even harder. I’ve paid my dues, done my service. All I want is to be accepted and happy.
I got this.
When Dena comes back inside, I let her wipe down the tables while I make some fresh coffee and fill the pots. I hum under my breath along to the country song playing on the radio and everything’s sort of okay right now.
