For Your Eyes Only

35

The sun beats down on the back of my neck as I pile my hair on top of my head for a mid afternoon shift at Linc's. The door dings happily which somewhat lifts my perpetual gloomy mood. Several regulars smile or kindly wave at me as I make my way behind the counter and I do my best to return them.

Lennette eyes me over her hand pad. "You look lovely today, Sweetpea."

She is just being nice. I look how I have looked the past couple of weeks. Which is drained. But I know that she is tredding water around me because she has been less nosey than usual.

"Thank you." I grab my apron from the hook over her right shoulder and tie it around my waist.

I can feel Levi, Lennette, and even Gary watching me through out my shift. No customers have complained because I have perfected a false cheery attitude down to a T thanks to cheerleading, but I know they can tell my heart is not in it.

Seeing Nate at school has been the definition of torture. I did it to myself, I know, but being alone is harder than I have ever imagined. But being alone without Nate is harder than I can ever explain. I can physically feel the hole in my chest from where his presence had once made home.

What made it worst was that I officially no longer had friends. I had overheard Alyssa talking to a few girls in the locker room about her sexipades with Danny. Turns out they've been secretly hooking  for months. Months longer than we've been "officially" broken up.

Funny thing is, I didn't feel blindsided about this information. Maybe I knew all along? Maybe I just never really cared? I can't get myself to be mad or even sad about it. Sure, I am mad at someone I considered my best friend for sneaking behind my back with my boyfriend of the time but I didn't love Danny. I love Nate. And Alyssa and I aren't close anymore.

That would explain why Danny became so apologetic; because guilt was finally catching up to him as well.

Maybe Alyssa secretly hates me all along. Maybe she was using me to get to the top. A true friend wouldn't do that.

Maybe it was all a lie as well.

That is the hardest weight to bare.

Though my old friends and I have let bygones be bygones, I still don't sit with them at lunch or join them at Friday night parties. The whole scene has grown to bore me.

All I want to do now is pop in movies or play strange board games that I once thought were too bazaar for me to even understand. On most nights, I find myself lying in the grass of my back yard and looking up at the sky. With most of the lights off from the neighbors, a few stars dot the blackened sky but it is nothing like how they looked in the back of the pickup truck with Nate.

I don't think anything could beat the way the sky looked that night. It might have been the way the universe swirled and twinkled that made it so memorable but I know it was because of the way those features projected in Nate's eyes. Like he had so many things to show me that only I would get the pleasure of seeing. That's what made everything so magical.

The door dings as I am refilling the coffee pots, the noise jolting me out of my thoughts. When I catch sight of the group that is walking through the door, my stomach instantly drops. Molly, Gavin, and Trent stroll through the maze of chairs and find a table in the corner closest to the bay window.

Their gazes casually flicker over to me before leaning their heads close to each other and pretend like they didn't see me at all.

It's strange to think that I had started to consider them as friends. Molly was a pain in my tush but her fierce loyalty to the ones that she cared for drew me to her. Trent was funny, a little too nerdy for me to understand at times, but friendly enough. And I have grown keen to Gavin's silence. It spoke more than words ever could at times.