Dear Diary, it wasn't love

7

Dear Diary,

He would've ruined you.

Jasper's words have been playing on repeat in my mind since last night. His words shouldn't bother me at all, let alone to this extent. I am not interested in Ryder. I do not care to know these things about him. Last night's topic of discussion should never have gone into the depth that it had.

I should not know that Ryder has been taking care of himself for too long; or that he moved into the fraternity a month early because of how bad things must've been at home, well, Cassie's home. These are things that I did not need to know, or want to know. But these are now the only things that I can think of.

As I leave the bathroom and grab my laptop from my bedside table, I can smell bacon.

When I reach the bottom of the staircase, I look over towards the kitchen to see a troubled Perri waving a towel in the air.

"Did you burn something?" I'm pretty sure she did.

"The stupid bacon burnt to a crisp! I used so much oil and I'm still left with flame-torched pig!" she whines.

I try my best not to laugh at her effort and turn on the stove fan. She must not have known this was a thing; hence the waving of the towel.

"Come on, let's go get some breakfast elsewhere. Maybe Hell's Kitchen? Wait, we're already in it right now," I laugh at my incredibly lame joke and grab my jean jacket off of the barstool.

"You don't need to tell me twice!" she eagerly squeals.

After a while of bickering over where to sit and eat, we notice a large sign that says, BETTY 'N BEN'S BREAFAST, just over the interstate.

We both give each other a suggestive look and Perri quickly changes lanes so that we can catch the next exit. We took her car today because I misplaced my keys. I swear I dropped them in the usual bowl on the table, but I must be wrong because when we were about to leave, I couldn't find them anywhere.

"Betty and Ben better make some good bacon," Perri laughs as we walk into the cute little diner.

It has a retro theme in every aspect: the servers are moving around on rollerblades, there is an old juke-box in the corner, and the seats are either a baby pink or blue. Everything looks and sounds vintage.

Elvis is playing.

The sign, up front tells us to seat ourselves, so we take a seat in one of the booths beside the front window.

There isn't much to look at outside in this particular area. We had been driving for almost twenty-minutes while we were trying to find a place. I believe we are near a truckyard or something of the sort, because the only other vehicles parked outside are eighteen-wheelers.

"Hello ladies, I'm Betty. You two must be new. I always recognize a new face in my diner. Our specials are on the backside of the menu, and coffee is on the house with any serving of food up until noon. I'll make myself useful and grab you two some water," the lady tells us and rolls away.

Free coffee. Sold.

The food comes out in under fifteen-minutes and I can tell from the look on Perri's face that she is thankful for Betty's bacon. We both start to fill our mouths within seconds.

My morning avocado toast has not been filling me up, that's for sure.

"Hey, Cap. I'm sorry I pushed Jasper about Ryder. I just wanted to know more about him, for you..." she searches my face for an angry reaction, I can tell.