In Too Deep

I couldn’t feel myself anymore. I didn’t know if I was numb, sleeping, or if the Colorado rain was seeping through the window, but I couldn’t feel my skin or the blast of the heater or my too-quick heaves. Sadie was passed out beside me, curled up against the freezing window with her face towards the vent. She was the embodiment of blissful exhaustion and I was envious of her. She didn’t have to feel anything, but I was left feeling absolutely nothing.

“Sadie,” I whispered as I shook her awake, nudging her into the door rather roughly. “Sadie,
wake up.”

She hummed, slapping at my hands and curling her arms against her chest. She always was stubborn; it didn’t matter if she was awake or dead asleep.

I shoved her and ripped her shoulder back, tapping her cheek. She retaliated with a loud whine, “Bennett! Stop it, I’m tired.”

“I’m going into the diner, Sade, I’m gonna lock the door. If you wake up, come in, but I can’t sit here any longer.”

She hummed, again, in response.

I pulled the keys from the ignition, grabbed the blanket in the back and spread it over her before I got out and closed the door gently, locking her in. The rain came down in heavy, frozen drops, washing over my skin as I forced my legs to carry me across the rubble and broken asphalt to the rundown diner. It was one of those crappy diners sitting off the exit of the interstate that promised greasy food and day old coffee, but I was starving and I knew it’d be within my newfound budget. I’m sure I could get some sort of chicken tender and fries meal for four dollars to wrap up for Sadie.

When I went in, the bell sounded and the two waitresses looked up from their conversation. One was older; hair dyed an unnatural red, with heavy make-up coated around her eyes and a deep crimson on her lips. The other was young, somewhere around my age or so, and her hair was a dark brown, big chestnut eyes watching me carefully and her thin lips pulled into a coy smile. She flashed white teeth and nodded towards me in welcome as I walked over to the end of the breakfast bar and sat down on the shiny red seat.

“Hey there,” the younger waitress smiled with a slight Southern accent, causing my eyebrows to pull in and my mouth to twist. “I’m Misty, and I’ll be hanging with you tonight. What can I get you?”

I thought about the money in my pocket and the money in my bank account and tapped the counter. “Uh, just coffee and a side of toast. Thanks.”

She furrowed her brows and licked her lips. I flicked my eyes over her fleetingly and stared at the off-white speckled countertop, tapping my finger against one of the navy specks like a broken button. The way she cautiously turned the burner for the coffee maker on, carefully toasted my bread, kept looking over her shoulder at me made it painfully obvious she wanted to converse. She wanted insight as to why I was in a shitty diner at two in the morning in the middle of a freezing rain. I wasn’t in the mood to be confronted about the bullshit I could barely manage to think about.

“What’s your name, darlin’?” she said with her eyes fixed on me, pulling a coffee cup from under the counter and flipping it.

I was caught between watching her every move and staring at the spot between my vision, knowing consciously every movement she made, but not actually seeing her. I wanted to focus on something other than the overwhelming absence of feeling that settled in my body, making me so numb that I almost wanted to stare at my hands in amazement for moving on thought.

I blinked quickly, trying unsuccessfully to focus my eyes. “Bennett,” I said distantly.

“Well, Bennett,” she began as she pushed the cup towards my fingers and set the glass container of sugar and the cliché decorative bowl full of creamer on the countertop, “What brings you to Robby’s so late at night?”

I stirred the half-n-half creamer and sugar around before risking a drink, my mouth instantly twisting, tongue curling back, from the stale coffee that no amount of creamer or sugar could freshen up. “I heard the coffee was fantastic.”

That was enough to make her jerk her head back, staring at me in disbelief with her eyes narrowed on me, lips settling into a pissed off little smirk. Her eyes gave her away. I could see so clearly that she wanted to bite back with something, put me in my place and make it clear that I was in her diner and if she wanted to spit in my coffee to make it taste better, then by golly gosh, she definitely would.

“I can think of a few ways to make it better.” she grumbled under her breath as she turned her back on me, slapping butter on my toast and spinning the plate into my cup.

I stared down at the toast, wanting to reach down and grab it, wanting to pick it up and devour it. I was hungry enough to look like a malnourished wolf who had just found a day old dead deer to feast upon, but I knew going at it like food had never been served to me would only make me throw up. The consumption of food would twist my starved stomach into a frenzy and I knew this, but I couldn’t force my hands to comply. I picked off the crust and felt my mouth water as I chewed.

I felt like a chained up beast that had been cut off from food and my master was finally satisfied enough to allow me to eat again, taking too much joy in the way I ripped at the food, snarling almost, and pushed it into my mouth greedily. Before a whole minute even passed, my food was gone and I was left feeling like my situation was living and breathing and telling all my secrets and struggles to the waitresses.

I flicked my eyes over Misty, who avoided my contact by staring at the white walls, gripping the edge of the counter, and forcing her eyes not to gravitate to her peripherals. That was confirmation enough. I stared at her until she gained the strength—or maybe it was weakness? Curiosity?—to return my look.

Maybe it was the way she tried to softly hold my gaze or the way her eyes looked too sympathetic, but I stared back with a twitching snarl instead of mirrored acceptance of my misfortune. I refused to have pity shed upon me. I refused to be objectified for a weak, pathetic blip in the system. I refused to let anyone, especially a couple of dead end waitresses at a shitty, end-of-the-road diner into the insight of my problems. They looked on and saw a hungry little boy stuck in the rut of a great and terrible world too harsh for me to understand, hungry and scrounging for food and shelter. They looked at me like the hand I had been dealt was too harsh, the pathetic look coating their eyes and their twisted mouths made me shrink, but my anger, my resent, my will made me large with a necessary rage.

I slammed three dollars and the few pennies I had at the bottom of my pocket on the counter and stared at Misty with harsh eyes, vindictive almost, before piercing the older waitress and nodding briskly. I shook the lapels of my jacket to stick up and cover my cheeks before walking out silently.

I walked along the side of the diner, looking at the car that was only a good twenty feet from me now, knowing I should get in and drive away and find a McDonald’s to grab Sadie a couple cheeseburgers, maybe even a drink. Maybe even extend the lavish dinner on myself, too. My fingertips were starting to swell, the only indication I had that I was cold. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my thin black gloves, trying to will my uncooperative fingers to slide into the fabric I knew was warm.

“Bennett!”

I twisted suddenly, standing out from under the awning and in the cold, harsh rain. I saw Misty striding and stopping right in front of me under the refuge of the red curved shelter. That felt like the drastic difference in our lives. She stood in shelter and security, warmth and understanding, a cushioned lifestyle. Whereas, I was left out in the rain, soaked and buried under the freezing weight of it, falsely hoping that my money could somehow get us to North Carolina. But, I knew. I knew too well, too realistically that the undamaged world Misty was living in, playing diner girl by night and college student by morning with misunderstanding parents and an annoying little sibling, was one that I couldn’t comprehend anymore. Just as I knew that the hour-to-hour survival methods I was trying to adapt to, trying to get Sadie to adapt to, wondering if we could possibly eat more than one meal a day and take highways and sleep at rest stops, was a world that Misty could never understand. I didn’t blame her for looking at me the way she did a few moments ago. It was just a world she couldn’t understand, a world I was still pissed off that I had to.

“I’m sorry.” she breathed, barely louder than the rain crashing down and assaulting my ears. “Whatever you’re going through, whatever your girlfriend is going through, whatever is happening. I’m sorry.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” was all I managed to say to the kind gesture, the genuine extension of acceptance that she couldn’t understand what the fuck was happening. There was no way she could, because not even I could understand it. “She’s my sister.”

Misty shifted her eyes toward me before back to the car, eyes so intent to make the shape of Sadie, like she was trying to see the resemblance between the two of us. She shook her head and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her pea coat pocket. She looked like she was about to offer me one before tucking them back in her pocket.

“Can I get one?” I rasped.

She raised an eyebrow and rolled the cigarette between her teeth. “I didn’t peg you for a smoker.”

“I’m not.”

“Then, why—”

“Because,” I cut her off quickly, staring at the Newport and pushing it between my lips, waiting for the lighter to be passed my way, “I need to feel something.”

“Can I ask?”

I looked over at her for a long time, just taking in the glow of the diner washing unevenly over her skin and shook my head. I took a drag long enough to choke my lungs, but forced the carcinogens to stay in my airways, swirling like the disease it was. It was the only way I could feel my insides again. I stared at the cheery and contemplated putting it out on my chest, just to feel the burn sear and sizzle my skin.

“Bennett?” she whispered my name, causing my lungs to release an awed noise around the gust of smoke.

I stared at her and she stared at my hand. It was then that I realized it was poised so the filter was away from me and the cheery was pointed towards the inside of my jacket at my chest. She reached toward it and wrapped her fingers around my wrist, tugging it back. I dropped my cigarette and she stomped it out before flicking her own away. She kissed my palm and I continued to just stare at her incomprehensibly.

“You are a flawed man with an unflawed body.” she breathed against my skin, her eyes watching me. “You feel hurt and anguish and abandonment. Your actions speak more words than you’ve said tonight, than you’ve said in this lifetime.”

“What are—?”

She shushed me softly and shook her head, her tongue wetting her lips in a nervous tick. It was like she wanted to keep her eyes on me but couldn’t find the will to keep it that way, flicking between the car, the rain, and the diner, only to muster the confidence to look at my face again.

“You’ve been dealt a shit hand. I can see it. The car, your clothes, you’re a well-to-do guy, aren’t you Bennett?” I could feel my jaw tighten, but she wasn’t waiting for me to reply. “But you refused to buy anything more than four dollars. Even though you’re clearly starving, you refused to get anything even remotely costly. Whatever it is that has happened that has flawed you and subconsciously made your hand turn on you,” her voice wavered off as did her eyes, looking at the ground. “I know we don’t know each other, but you can talk to me.”

I couldn’t break my stare, I couldn’t blink. I could speak, I couldn’t think. There was nothing to say. She was right. I had been thinking about this all night. I was flawed. My mother’s abuse and abandonment to care for her daughter made me into a flawed man. I needed to take care of Sadie but I could barely take care of myself.

My voice felt like it would break if I spoke louder than a whisper above the heavy downfall. “It’s all just so fucked up.”

“Hurting yourself,” she began in a soft, compassionate voice, careful to block my harsh realities out, “Is not going to help anyone. Whatever’s happened, be it for better or worse, you are strong. You don’t think you are, or maybe you do, but you are.”

“You’re just a diner girl.” I gruffly choked, staring at the smashed cigarette and wishing I could drag more smoke into my lungs to shut myself the fuck up. “You live in this sheltered life. You wouldn’t know the kind of shit I’ve gone through.”

“Bennett, I work the third shift at a shitty diner. Do you honestly think I want to be here at two in the morning on a Thursday? I’m helping my father make ends meet to help pay for my mother’s hospital bills. I should be in bed to get up for school in a few hours. My whole life is on hold right now, all depending upon this stupid, stale-coffee serving waitress job. I wish I knew what shelter was. Our house got foreclosed on, we live in a one bedroom apartment, my father, my sister, and I. I don’t know an easy life. So I’m telling you, as a perfect stranger who could understand what’s happening, talk to me.”

I felt my jaw unhinge as I watched her, the raindrops trying their damnedest to graze her skin but I couldn’t speak. I was wrong. I was completely wrong about Misty. She could understand what I was going through, even if she had no idea.

“My sister is kind of a rebel, I guess you could say. She’s just fucking her life up and my mother is just, she’s just done caring. She threw an ashtray at my sister and hit her in the face. Right on the cheek, nearly breaking the bone. And I knew we had to get out because I was either going to kill my mother for hurting her child or my mother was going to kill my sister for being a teenager.”

Now it was Misty’s turn to gawk at me, eyes set so wide you could see the veins that should have been covered by lids. “You’re right. I grew up in a rich community, gated and uniformed, in a house with four spare bedrooms, a great hall, and a grand dining room. I had maids and people to cook me food, friends with all the right people in all the right places. I lived a sheltered life, but that shelter was poisonous for both Sadie and I. I had to get us out.”

She rubbed her face and took a shaky breath, rubbing the back of her neck like she didn’t know what to do with her hands now that she found out my ugly truths. “Where are you heading?”

“To my father’s in North Carolina. It’s the only place I can think to take us so that she can finish out school, have a normal life. I just want to give her a normal life, Misty.”

Dropping my hand, Misty gripped my face, turning my head towards her, finally finding something to occupy her hands. Her eyes stared depths that would make the oceans blush with jealousy. Those eyes were on their own level of beauty, a light brown with a green tint and yellowish flecks. I felt like I couldn’t breathe when she whispered, “You’re a good man, Bennett. A strong, good-hearted man.”

I didn’t have time to find the words to thread a reply. I didn’t have the time to even focus on anything besides Misty’s breath caressing my mouth, so close and wanting it closer. She surged into me, moving one hand into the mess of my hair and pulling my head down to hers. Her kiss was soft, sweet, and comforting. I could taste against her lips how desperate she was to take away my pain, to replace it with sweet serenity.

I didn’t know this girl. She didn’t know me. I didn’t know her father’s name or her last name, what school she went to, what her favorite food was. I didn’t know what her voice sounded like when she was on the brink of tears or exhaustion, what it sounded like in the sweetness of morning or when she was singing her favorite song. I didn’t know her touch when all she wanted was me between her sheets, or how helpless it was when I was leaving for the night. I didn’t know her rough and angry kisses or the one’s full of adoration. I didn’t know her.

But, fuck, did I adore her.