Midnight Kisses| ✓

Chapter 8

Crazie Hat is this place where you can get coffee, big burgers and greasy french-fries and Chinese food all in one place. It's kind of a real weird combination. I guess it suits the name which it after a crazy guy walked into it holding a gun. He was wearing a hat. No one remembers what this place was called before that incident.

It was all over the news. And they named the place after him. That's the kind of town Northfield is. There's even supposed to be blood spatters engraved inside a glass case. Footsteps of our town's only colorful history.

"What do you want to eat?" Novahk asks when we slid into our booth. It overlooks the parking lot and the whole diner shakes whenever a big pickup truck passes through the street. "Something greasy. And coffee."

"Nice combination." Novahk could pass off as Captain Hook. Or Peter Pan through a polarized mirror posing as Hook, like Emma Swan's Hook, he is a pirate getting ready to take off to great adventures but his heart in its place.

The waitress comes and takes our order. She looks bored, there's hardly anybody here, and she pops a gum while writing it down on the notepad. I am half afraid her spitball will make its way into my cup. And I'll see it once I am done drinking the whole of it.

"Why are you treating me to lunch?" I ask resting my chin on both of my hands and looking at the jukebox that sits on the coffee counter instead of looking at Novahk.

"Because I want to," he says simply mimicking my action and puts his hand under his chin too as if observing me intently. I slump backward on the red cushion seat.

"That makes no sense." It's like I am living somebody else' life and am just a curious onlooker. Weird looking girl who always wears oversized hoodie with a tall boy with dark eyes, and is probably the whitest person I have seen (his veins on his hand pop out on his milky skin) does not happen in this universe. Not the universe I belong to. It's like I am breaking the rules, like Dr Phillipa.

"It does. Now tell me about your name."

"What about it?"

"I like it and I have already asked about your surname so it's totally logical I should ask about your given name too." The food arrives. It's hot and the french-fries are greasy.

"Excuse me," I ask the waitress who looks disgusted that I am talking to her even when she has already delivered the food. "where's this glass case." The girl smirks and points me to a coin counter with anon-descript glass just sitting there. "Right there."

I nibble on one dipping it in mayo dip. Emily used to hate mayo.

We were so different in some ways, I wonder how we were even friends in the first place. Maybe we had broken the law of the universe back then, too. And it had found a way to punish us.

"She's not getting any tip."

Novahk laughs but says. "Seriously what does Krishna mean? If I had to guess I would say it means beautiful." What is that supposed to mean?

But I don't pursue his words. I shrug and say, "It's the name of a blue skinned god, from the Hindu mythology. Krishna was this farmer who lived in a land called Dwarka and demons would be sent by his evil uncle to kill him but he would always manage to outsmart them and kill them along with his friends."

"So he was a demon slayer? You are named after a demon-slayer. And how cool is that you have a boy's name." He smiles, his eyes twinkling with mirth. At that moment I am aware how ironic my name is.

"Not exactly. In India its unisexual." And then I blurt out without meaning it "And you have a half of a girl's name. Nova+ hk. What's up with that?" I didn't mean to be rude but he smiles instead of scowling. His nickname is accurate for him. He's really a supernova the brightest star in the galaxy, a phenomenon of his own being.