I opened my eyes and drew in a deep breath.
"Are you okay?" I looked across to Zach who was sitting there next to Mikey. We were in a rounded booth, me on this edge and Zach on the other, and the boys on the inside of the curve. I looked around at the daylight, at the bar of breakfast foods, at the cashier's desk and the bright outside of the glass doors across the room. People chatted around us, oblivious or obviously not caring that celebrities sat here [besides myself]. My eyes shifted to the plate in front of me of waffles and fruit with eggs and bacon.
"When did we get here?" I asked, looking up from my plate of food with astonishment.
"Uh," Zach looked at me. "We've been here."
I was still dumbfounded.
"Yeah, we've been here for a while." Jesse placed his hand on my thigh. "Do you not remember getting up and coming down here this morning?"
"Obviously not." I answered with a little annoyance at myself. It bothers me to not remember things.
"I can't believe you don't. Do you not remember getting that second plate of food?"
I scoffed at my food like it just slapped me for no reason. "What? Are you serious?"
Mikey nodded his head. "Deathly serious."
"Ugh, don't talk about death right now." I put my head in my palms and drug my face threw them.
"Why not?" Bryan asked.
"Because I had an awful dream. I saw myself die one way, then I actually died a different way. It was scary."
"Maybe that's why you can't remember eating. You're dead!" I looked at Bryan who made faces at me. "You can't eat so you don't have any reason remembering to do so! It's perfect!"
"Very funny." I said, sighing and picking up my fork. I poked at my waffles and was just being absentminded. I stirred the contents around without a thought, just trying to gather myself. Just then, my instincts kicked in and told me to watch the door. I looked up and did as my animal drive said. The keyword was 'watch' in that sentence, which meant it'd be a while before anything happened. But it wasn't too long before something did happen.
I gasped and gripped Jesse's thigh really tight. He stopped chewing and looked at my hand then me.
"You okay?" he mumbled. I kept my head down and eyes on my feet. I glanced over in the direction of the door. Someone was standing there, the same person that came in. I slowly looked up until I met their eyes. Terror set in and tears clawed their way up my tear-ducts until they began to fill the brim of my eyes. I tried looking away from the tall, grinning figure, but my eyes were stuck to him.
"Koda? Are you okay?" Zach reached across the table for me and froze. My eyes were still stuck to the figure who was now walking my way.
"No Zach. No. Oh......." I began to cry. I blinked away the salt water that trickled down my cheeks slowly, but I still saw him. I saw every step he took, every shift in the fabric of his dark-washed blue jeans. I shook my head and looked down and utterly away from him, but I still, impossibly, saw him. It was as if I got tunnel vision then; all I saw was him and his movements, all else was blurry. Rivulets of scared emotion bled down my face. And then.......
Andrew was gone.
It felt literally like the calm in the middle of the storms in that movie 'The Day After Tomorrow'. Seconds before the worst happens, before the onslaught of shit was ready to hit the fan and splatter everywhere. My head still down and eyes able to finally move, I looked around. All was still normal except how quiet it was. I knew my heart was beating a million-miles-a-minute, but I didn't hear that in my ears. The sun was shining outside, the breakfast parlor was briskly quiet.
