your body is a weapon → brad simpson | ✓

ten

I took the day off school since in the first two hours I was awake, I had a shit time. I got on the bus outside of school and got off outside of Den's Diner to see Luna and her father.

I open the door and see most seats are empty. It wasn't a surprise, most people didn't want to come near a diner that had a murder happen outside of it.

Luna was working behind the bar, a tired smile on her face as she serves an old couple. Her eyes flicker over to me as the bell to the diner rings and her smile grows slightly.

I walk over to her, tugging my jacket over my body before I pull out some cash that was in my trousers.

"Hey, Jamie," she says. Her voice was raw and tired and I felt awful for her. "What can I get you?"

"I'll just have a chocolate milkshake," I say, putting a few pound coins on the counter before sliding on to a barstool. She takes the money and puts it in the cash register and hands me the change. I put it in her tip jar.

"How've you been?" She asks after she's made my milkshake. I take a sip of my drink and swirl the straw around the glass absentmindedly.

"I've been better," I admit. "I've had a shit morning so I thought I'd come here and see how you guys are."

"You saw the news report?" She asks and I nod sadly at her. "My dad told me that even loyal customers don't want to come because they're too scared that they're gonna get stabbed or something."

"It'll blow over eventually," I assure her, a smile on my face as I put a hand over hers. "It's gonna be slow for a bit but soon, something else will happen and everyone will forget about it."

"I hope so," she sighs out, looking to the door as someone else walks in. She goes to serve them and I drink some of my milkshake, looking around the diner.

Aiden and I came here a lot to hang out after school or on the weekends, and we would always end up getting glares off of the other customers. Sometimes Den would come and tell us off but he was laughing at, us too. Aiden leaving was another reason that I didn't come here anymore.

"So," Luna grabs my attention again and I look over to her with a small smile, ripping my eyes off of the family photos hanging on the wall. "What made your day so bad, huh?"

"My dad found some photos of Aiden and I," I say with a small sigh, looking down at my drink. "It reminded me of how lonely I am now and how much I miss him. It sucked."

She smiles sadly at me, "I knew how much of a friend Aiden was to you. I'm sorry that he left you."

"I've got to get over it eventually," I shrug. "I can't always be sad over it." She nods, serving another customer before returning to me once again.

"Anything else happen?" She asks and I shrug. "Come on, talk to me. Why would you take a day off of school just because of a picture? You love going to school."

"Not anymore," I mumble out and she raises her eyebrows at me. "There's a guy at school and he's making my life hell."

"How come?"

"He's always judging me for my house," I sigh. "He thinks I'm a spoilt, privileged bitch or something. I mean, I judged him from rumours but he's not exactly proving me wrong."

She thinks for a moment. "How about you talk to him and apologise to him for judging him? You never know, maybe he'll apologise back." I open my mouth to argue. "You can tell him that you've gone through shit and that you don't need to tell him, but he needs to stop judging you."

Luna was right, Brad and I needed to properly speak to each other instead of either arguing or ignoring each other, and not when we are doing our project. It would make both of our lives easier, definitely.