Chapter 15 Rosie
ROSIE
My feet ached, and I was pretty sure I pulled something in my back.
But I only broke two plates and spilled one drink all down the front of my T-shirt, which Orla told me she considered a success.
Either way, I actually loved it. I was sitting in one of the booths, rolling silverware, which I had a feeling was going to be my least favorite part of the job, when a glass of ice tea suddenly appeared next to me.
“You didn’t suck,” Orla stated, and took a seat across from me. “You have this whole clueless Bambi thing going on that I think the customers will like. What did you think?”
“Is that a compliment or an insult?” I asked her as I reached for the tea and took a sip.
“Why can’t it be both?” she questioned. “The job is yours if you want it. How do you feel about two shifts a week? Friday nights and Sunday mornings.”
I pretended to ponder her offer, even though I knew I was taking it.
Despite my mistakes, I’d had such a good time.
The regulars who sat through the afternoon rush, drinking coffee and offering me words of encouragement.
The cook, Daniel, who’d been with Orla since the beginning, was a comedic genius, and his son, Matt, who was a senior in high school, worked as a busboy on the weekends.
It created an atmosphere of family that I just wanted to sink into and stay in for a while.
“On one condition. You have to give me the recipe for your lemon bars.” I smiled at her, and took a drink of the ice tea she had brought over to me. So sweet. So good.
“Deal.” Her gaze swept over me, and her eyes held an approving glint to them. “Are you ready to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“What has you tired.” She reached out and covered my hand as it hovered on the silverware as she asked her question.
“I slept eight hours last night, Orla.”
She gave my hand a squeeze. “I’m talking about what has your soul tired.”
I was unsure if it was the kindness in her hands or the tenderness in her question, but I choked on the emotions that bubbled over—the emotions I had been trying to tamp down for the past decade that were no longer comfortable or willing to lay silent.
“I, uhm…” I didn’t exactly know what to say because the feelings caught in my throat.
The truth I’d never mentioned to another human being felt like a spark on my tongue, and once I breathed it to life, it would set fire to my reality.
Sometimes, you can’t rebuild from the ashes.
Sometimes, they are swept away by winds you can’t see, scattered so far apart there’s no rebuilding.
“I love him, and I—uh…” My voice cracked as Orla stood, came over to my side of the booth, and pulled me into her.
“I have to let him go now, and it’s okay.
It’s really…okay. I just don’t know how.
” The tears were hot as they fell, and I could no longer make out the silverware I’d been folding just moments prior.
I wanted to be embarrassed that I was crying in a booth in the back of the diner, but I couldn’t.
“It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to grieve something.
Even if it doesn’t make sense to anyone else, it makes sense to you, and it’s okay to not be okay.
” She tucked my face into her and just let me cry.
And even though I was letting go, and felt like I was falling apart, I also felt like I was moving forward.
A sudden blundering sound of a plate shook me from my tears.
“Pancakes,” the gruff voice of Daniel said, almost like a demand.
“Pancakes?” I questioned. Finally, the tears stopped as I took in a plate of pancakes in the shape of what looked like Mickey Mouse.
“Yes, pancakes. They make everything better. Eat.” He pointed to the plate, looking thoroughly disgruntled at the fact that I was upset. “I’ll make bacon,” he said matter-of-factly, like pancakes and bacon made everything okay. And who was I to argue?
“Thank you.” I shot him a watery smile, and he just shrugged at me, but I didn’t miss the relief on his face at my thanks.
“Give me ten years, Rosie, and you’ll never think of another guy again,” Matt said as he came over to pick up the plates left at the booth behind us. It would have been really sweet if he weren’t seventeen and his comment alone gave me the ick.
“Please don’t make me lose my lunch,” I told him.
“You wound me,” he replied, and placed his hand over his heart.
I refrained from flicking off the teenager and brought my focus back to my food as Orla patted me on the knee. “You’ll do good here. We are happy to have you.”
“Me too,” I told her. After all, it was the beginning of something new.