I am not sure what it was that provoked me to go wandering around in the middle of the night in the tiny town that I happened to live in. By tiny, I mean less than hundred poeple and half of those people were elders who loved the countryside. Clearly, if there were that many old people in one place you would expect to find one of those retiree homes. Well, you thought wrong, for there is not a single retirement home in the tiny town of Cinder, Texas.
In Cinder, Texas you can expect to see tons of trees and rolling hills that are dotted with livestock. Then there is of course downtown Cinder, which is a road that has shops dotted on either side. One of the shops is a twenty-four hour diner that is about the only place that is open for an absurd about of time and for seven days a week. Every other shop is closed on Sunday and the hours are hormonal.
When I walked into the dinner I expected to be the only one there besides the waitress and cook. I did not expect to see another person hunched over in a corner booth, his phone held close to his face. From where I stood I did not recognize him, and I am sure I would have, since everyone knows everyone in this town. That was just one of the many things I hated about this place.
Ignoring the other person, I went and sat down at a counter and folded my hands in my lap. The waitress, whose name was Martha, came up and set a mug of hot chocolate in front of me. I thanked her and then lifted up the mug to take a sip. It may have been summer and eighty-six degrees outside, but hot chocolate was good any time of the year.
While I sat there sipping my hot chocolate, I did not notice the guy get up from the booth and walk towards me. It was not until he sat next to me and spoke up did I realize that he had moved. When he did speak up I jumped up and almost hit the ceiling from shock. My sudden movement caused the hot drink to slosh out of the mug and onto the front of my shirt.
Gasping, I got up and moved away from the bar stool I had been sitting in. Looking down at my shirt I could see the liquid seeping through and proceed to make the fabric stick to my tan skin.
For a few moments I could feel the guy staring at me, his gaze focused on where the hot chocolate had landed. Like luck would have it the liquid landed on my chest, and I knew that I was not busty like some of the other people in the town, but I was a girl and had boobs. Which meant that I was I was a tad bit uncomfortable with a random guy eyeing my chest almost wondering if I was going to take off my shirt. That would be a logical thing if I was at home and out of the public eye, but since I was in public there was no way my shirt was coming off.
Lifting up head up, I glared at the boy who had an impish grin on his face. Seeing that expression just made me more pissed and I snapped. “Are you going to apologize and give me your jacket or not?”
I held out my hand and waited for him to take off the dull black jacket that had some logo of a band on the front. Since he did not answer me or hand me the hoodie, I pursed my lips and raised my eyebrows practically asking why he was not helping me out.
Reluctantly, the boy got of the bar stool he had been sitting on and took of the jacket. Handing it over, he sighed and then took a seat again.
Not saying my thanks, since he did not apologize, I slipped my arms into the jacket and then zipped it up until I could no longer see the stain that was growing.
Taking my seat back, I pushed the mug that was now empty away from me. I knew that Martha would be out soon to see what the commotion was all about and to take the mug away. If I knew any better she would also be bringing out a plate of fries, which was my favorite food and she knew that. In fact, that was something else about a tiny town, everyone knew what you liked and disliked.
Yes, so you could mention one person and could tell you right away what some of their likes were and what they dislikes. For most of the people in the town football was on top of their ‘like’ list, perhaps even their ‘love’ list. Football in tiny towns in Texas was a religion. Sadly to many people, I was not a part of the football religion and never planned on converting over either.
