BOOTH BOY

Once Upon A...

I'm sat across the smooth vinyl table of a restaurant booth way past midnight, munching on the cherry from my vanilla milkshake. My stomach keeps erupting with a glittery stardust emotion that twirls and swirls and then moves up and down my bloodstream, making my lips tingle and my fingers tremble. I really hope he just thinks its the cold.

I sneak a glance up at him from under my eyelashes and pull the cherry seed I'd been chewing on out from between my lips by the stem clenched in two shaky fingers. I quickly look down again. He's watching me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see his lips twist into a smirk- no, not a smirk- a half smile. It's not malicious. Just amused. I find myself smiling at the table.

How endearing.

I place my stem and seed aside before tilting my face and resting my cheek on my palm, my other hand firmly wrapped around the glass stem. I use my new vantage point to study his profile in the picture window. Perfect nose and a side profile to die for. The violet-blue reflection turns his head and catches me staring. Again. This time his smile is a full blown grin. He lifts his own milkshake and tips the glass at my reflection before he proceeds to gulp three thirds of the triple chocolate confection of sugary death in one big gulp. Then he slams the glass down on the table and takes a long drag of his cigarette to "clear" the taste.

Absolutely nonsensical. Why would you order something so sweet just to destroy the aftertaste with what I'm assuming is the smoky bitter tang of a cigarette? I wouldn't know for certain. I've frankly never smoked and watching the small exhalation of grey cloud around a perfectly appealing face didn't make me want to start anytime soon either.

People have this weird notion. Something about attractiveness being able to sell anything. I can see why that might be true.

We're technically not allowed to smoke in the diner but it's fast approaching two in the morning, we're the only ones here, and the lone waitress, Martha, has a soft spot for this particular boy with wild hair and kind blue eyes. She makes an exception. Just don't butt that dreadful cigarette ash on her countertops. Or else.

His napkin rests next to his bent elbow, collecting the black-grey ashes each time he angles the cigarette and lightly taps the butt.

I watch every thing he does transfixed by some adolescent admiration that started the second we moved to this winter town from the former swelling heat of Florida and an aptly built boy with blonde highlights in chestnut brown hair came over with his family to welcome us to the neighbourhood. He had been shuffling his feet and drumming a steady beat on the side of his knee because he clearly had somewhere better to be. Until he saw me, wedged between my Mom and Dad, mostly out of sight. In that moment, he caught my eye and offered me a genuine smile. I don't know if I ever quite recovered from the experience.

That was back when he was a different sort of boy that lived a different sort of life. Before the cocky, sarcastic act. We all watched him go from golden boy to "bad boy" in the span of two months of prescription drugs. Some incidents leave you never the same. He was trying so hard to sell the tough guy trope and yet it it never mattered, for his eyes never stopped being kind.

I would usually give two hoots about some cocky bastard that smoked in public spaces and still I chose to forgive him tonight. I saw his face in the pale glow of the streetlights and knew I could forgive him almost anything. At least this once.

Forgive him? Yes. Cease to judge him? No.

I still sat there with all the high and mightiness of someone too confident in her study of human nature. I wondered why he did what he did. Did he think he was some sort of new age rebel for smoking in a restaurant booth when it wasn't allowed, for the millions of tiny tattoos inked on pale fingers, for folding his leg up on the booth and wearing too many silver rings? Was he some overdone archetype , a silhouette of an aesthetic or a just a boy being himself? Or at the very least who he thought he was? Should be? Wanted to be? Was that so wrong? To use your charming smile and icy blue eyes to wriggle yourself into the memory so as not to fade into the shadows of mediocrity?

I'm jostled out of my musing by a small cough. "Care to share your thoughts with an audience?"

I don't exactly blush -I've got copious amounts of melanin to thank for that- instead, I feel my face flare up with sudden heat and contritely bite my lip. There are so many things I want to ask, to say and yet I only manage to shyly shake my head, causing wisps of dark curls to fly about wildly. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm not usually shy. He leans back in his seat, his smile not wavering an inch. "Okay, Island girl. Save all your brilliant contemplations to yourself. I don't mind."

He takes one last pull of his cigarette, still smiling, more to himself than me and puts it out on his napkin before neatly wrapping the bundle up, being careful not to let a single particle of ash fall on Martha's countertops.

The care is so particular. I sort of like him for it.

Maybe there's no harm in being a cliche. Maybe you wake up one morning and unknowingly stumble into it. I have seen hide his cigarette behind his back when his mother or one of his little sisters chose to join him in the gardens in the evenings. Maybe under all that sex appeal and leather jackets, he was still just a boy and sitting opposite him in this muted world of 2am I should just be a girl basking in the astronomical light and glory of being the one he was looking at. So deeply you would think he could see my soul through my black dress.

He folds his arms and leans forward, propping his chin on his forearm. "You can ask me, Island Girl. I can practically see the questions swimming in your eyes."

I laugh and mimic him, folding my own arms and leaning forward. "There's so many questions. Where do I start?"

He winks and his tongue quickly darts out to lick his lips, "The beginning."

It's a cliché. It makes no real sense. And yet there we were, baring our souls to each other while Jess Glynne claimed there was no place she'd rather be over the speakers. Even while twirling my paper straw in my cherry vanilla milkshake to keep my fingers busy, I somehow knew I would come back to this moment many times to fondly recall the next two hours of muted conversation, probing stares and soft laughter.

I would always come back to my booth boy.