Cherry soda calamity

🍒four🍒

The car ride was awkward, I will admit that, but I couldn't care less.

I was so hungry. My mother didn't like having the radio on more often than not, so the car rides always seemed longer than they actually were. I normally distracted myself from my mothers awkward silence by playing car games with myself.

One of my favourite ones, were imagining a tall figure running by the car, jumping the trees with long elegant glides, but tonight was different. Tonight I wanted to try and talk with my mother.

I turned away from the window and looked at her. She was focused on the road, tapping her long slender fingers on the rim of the steering wheel every so often.

I went to open my mouth when she cleared her throat.

"We're almost at the diner, straighten yourself our dear, first impressions."

I slumped slightly in my seat, remembering that I'm  in the same car as the woman who dragged me to Maryland.

The diner was coming up in the distance, fluorescent blue illuminating the distance.

'Joel's diner" flashed on and off in the distance, the quaint little restaurant coming closer as my mother pulled into the parking lot.

I unbuckled myself as soon as my mother parked, and hopped out of the car to stretch my legs. My mother walked ahead of me towards it, and went inside. I hurried after her, and looked around the classically styled diner. There were plump woman on rollerblades for some reason, I understood them matching the flashback vibe, but they were really unnecessary, the people working all looked to be above 40, and they scooted along awkwardly in the baby blue uniforms.
A small lady with blue eyeshadow up to her thin eyebrows smiled at us and rolled over. She welcomed us in, and lead us to a empty orange and blue booth. The confusing chair couch hybrids hurt my eyes with the extreme colour clash, i cringed a little bit when they squeaked upon me sitting.

The lady handed us some menu's, and scooted off to tend to one of the chubby men in brown windbreakers grunting for more coffee.

I just kind of looked at my mom, smirking. "Does this remind you of when you were my age mum?" I half giggled as i hid behind my menu.

"God damn it," she said chuckling "I'm only 37 Cherry."

I smiled at her as i scanned the menu.
There wasn't many options, either a greasy breakfast special with the works, or three variations of the same burger. I sighed and decided to get a plain cheeseburger and some milk.

I smile at my mom and put down my menu. "Dad would have loved this diner, wasn't he always talking about how restaurants always serve pre-prepared and bland food?"

She gripped the menu a little tighter, and I realized my mistake.