The air inside the dingy diner swirled around my face as the force of the opening door stirred it’s calm. It smelt like bacon, and the space around the dim lights was crowded with those weird, tiny particles of dust visible to the human eye. You know, the strange, floaty bits of everything you marvel at as a child.
It was a pretty small restaurant, if you could even call it that, and I shouldered past other tables to get to the only free one. The place was cramped, and I brushed the thin lace curtain as I sat down and folded the skirt of my dress underneath me. Putting down my small backpack and smoothing the green tablecloth, I looked around, taking a deep breath, and noticed that the walls were decorated in an eclectic sort of way. There was a red rimmed, plastic clock, a large picture of a flower, and a couple framed images of bulldogs. Overall, not much of a pleasant effect. But the walls were wooden and the atmosphere warm, giving it a certain feeling of homey-ness. I looked across from me at the table occupied by a middle aged couple obviously in some sort of disagreement. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the resurfacing memories that had suddenly bubbled to the top of my head. My parents yelling at each other. My parents throwing things at each other in the small kitchen. My father’s harsh words as my mother tried to find retorts to scream back.
I was immediately distracted as my waiter approached the table. I followed my eyes up from his chest, which was fit, to his face. His blond hair wasn’t too long or too short, and it was tousled perfectly, a look that suggested he had just rolled out of bed. His eyes were sort of an olive shade of green, wide and gentle looking. And last of all, his lips, poised like he was just about to say something, full and just about the most amazing part of him. He smiled this sort of half smile, like he was holding back a laugh, and then curled his bottom lip into his mouth, biting down.
“What can I get you?” He asked, in a smooth voice. I stuttered. I hadn’t even looked at the menu yet. But my stomach growled ferociously at the thought of any sort of food, so I cautiously ordered the Grand Breakfast, the first thing my eyes noticed on the dog-eared piece of laminated paper. He nodded, and wrote it down quickly on his pad of paper. As he walked away with one last grin, I caught the letters written on his name-tag. Bennett.