Princess

My shift at the coffee shop was painfully slow, even for a Sunday. Claire was hungover and about as talkative as me. I’d spent most of the shift obsessing over this morning.
In my head I agreed with everything I had said to him, he deserved me all of it. But there was another part of me that was whispering that maybe he didn’t. I sighed and pulled the cup of water to my lips, all I wanted to do was cry home and hide from everyone but I knew that wasn’t an option.
Bob would be waiting for me, maybe Frankie if him and Mikey were ok. I didn’t want to deal with either of them. I walked away from the till, dumping my cup in the trash as I did. It was time for my break so I went outside, enjoying the breeze as it cooled my face. I pulled my hair out of its mandatory pony tale and let it flow around my face.
I smiled as I ran my hair through it.
The picture had drifted into my head again, I smiled and pulled my waitress pad out of my pocket.
I wrote “I’m sorry too” in as elegant script as I could manage. Next I drew a picture of me and him, both of us pulling faces at each other. The drawing style was different to Gerard’s more realistic. I checked my watch and realised I had gone way over my time limit for my break.
The shop was still pretty empty, Bob had appeared though, him and Claire were whispering by the till.
“Any plans for summer?” Bob asks me, his voice is almost accusing and I feel myself push the picture further into my pocket. I shrug, I hadn’t thought of any real plans. I knew at some point I should head to Chicago and I knew I should look at colleges but I hadn’t planned anything and if I had, would I tell Bob? He was my best friend, he always had been but his visit seemed different this time.
The relationship felt as though it had changed somehow. Had he always seemed this angry? Were we always this quiet around each other? Maybe it wasn’t us, maybe it was just me. Being away from him for so long and making sure these last two years of high school were as easy as possible. I’d made myself invisible and he’d gone the other way.
His eye’s were digging into me as he nodded and went back to his conversation with Claire.
“You can leave early if you want, I’ll still pay you for the rest of the day.” Claire said, not even looking away from Bob. I grumbled thanks and walked to the lockers. I hadn’t brought much with me, just my purse and my jacket so I managed to sneak out of the back of the shop before anyone could stop me. I basically ran to my car and climbed in slightly too quickly, knocking myself off guard for a few moments.
Thankfully no one had noticed, I did notice someone’s car outside the shop though. The same car that had been parked outside the school and my house. I sighed, I knew it was Gerard’s, it was obvious from the dodgy black paint, the Star Wars air freshener and the dodgy bumper stickers.
I snuck over and carefully lifted up the windscreen wipers and placed the picture I had drawn underneath it before slipping back to my own car. I sat in the drivers seat and played around with the radio for a moment.
Gerard walked over to his car, I watched him carefully over the steering wheel. He pulled the drawing out and smiled as he looked at it, then he began looking around the car park until he spotted my car. Hesitantly he waved at me, I grinned goofily and waved back, mentally slapping myself as I did. He walked over to my car slowly, giving me plenty of time to start the engine and drive away. Brain, that’s your cue to work.
He tapped lightly on the window.
“You wanna go hang out somewhere?”