Anxious

Chapter 3: Feeling Faint

She had to work late today, the diner was jam packed. She was so busy, she didn't notice the staff or customers. Leslie was focused on her food. The chef blocked everything else out when she cooked or prepared. There was no anxiety, no worries, no panic; just her and her recipes. 

She had helped open this morning at 3am and was supposed to be off by 11am. Now, it was almost 2pm and the lunch crowd had just died down. She finished making the last meal and cleaned up for the other cook. Her apron was hung up and she gave the owner's wife a light pat on the shoulder, indicating she was leaving for the day.

"See ya tomorrow, Leslie!" Mama Moe belted out.

All the other employees looked up, waved, and shouted "BYE!!" on cue.

Leslie walked out half smiling, half rolling her eyes. She loved that insane bunch in her own way. They had become the closest thing to family she had since her mother died when she was 18.

She couldn't let herself think about the past lately. She'd been having flashbacks when she did, and they weren't sweet memories. It happened to be things she never remembered before, if they were even real. Things she probably repressed for a reason.

The young, stressed woman walked to the stadium near the diner. Leslie walked everywhere. She had never gotten her driver's license. Her uneasiness had kept her from even having the desire to try. She was perfectly happy walking with her own two feet, having complete control. Of course, Leslie was a control freak. She never denied it either.

She climbed the steps to the bleachers, sat in the same spot she always did, munched her crackers, watched the runners, and checked out her phone. She loved to relax and zone out here after a long day. Another one? 

It was well into Spring and the place was coming to life. Leslie didn't come here very often in the Summer, there were just too many people. For as long as she could remember, she was a bit nervous (to say the least) when it came to crowds or just people in general. School years were quite difficult, but her mother was supportive. Her mother showed her how to get through it. Her mother helped her learn to focus on objects, instead of people, when she felt jittery. Her mother taught her how to live. Her mother was all she knew. Her mother...

She was suddenly ripped back to her childhood.

****

It was after dinner, she could still smell her mother's spaghetti sauce lingering in the air. Adult Leslie was looking through her own, 6 year old eyes, at her childhood home. She grew up in this house, in the city of Goldendale in Washington state. 

She was wearing a pink, frilly dress. She had never worn a dress, as far as she could ever remember, not even to her mother's funeral. She looked for her mother now. She wasn't at the table in the kitchen. Little Leslie stood next to it. So, she half skipped in to check the living room. Adult Leslie had no control over her tiny body, it was like a movie, but she was inside of it.

Everything looked exactly as her mother had always kept it, cluttered but homey. Leslie ran down the hall and glanced at the pictures hanging on the wall, and standing up on tables. The biggest was a framed photo that hung in the middle of the mess. It was a photo of the father she'd never met. He was in a military uniform and he wasn't smiling. He had died when Leslie was just 2 years old, while he was overseas serving his country. The image on the wall was the only memory she had of her father. 

It was just the two of them, her mother and her, Mrs. and Miss Locks. Her mother focused solely on her daughter and NEVER brought a man around, that Leslie could remember. Sheryl Locks was her best and only friend, and she was her mother's. They were all each other had in the whole world.