Irresistible

September 2

 I sat across my best friend in a small twenty-four hour diner that I work part time in staring at her like she had lost her mind.

"Camryn, you're literally crazy. You can't keep talking to this guy that has been driving you insane, not to mention you even look insane," referring to her outfit that consisted of my oversized fuzzy zip down, cowboy boots, and basketball shorts. "You've been wrapped up in his mess for how long now? A year? Longer now?"

"Lil, you just don't understand. He's not working here today right? You checked the schedule? Because I heard that he had started working here, but I didn't see his car in the parking lot when I came in," Camryn rattled off.

"I promise he's not working today, I checked the schedule and didn't see him on it and like you said, his car isn't even here. You really don't have to worry" I glanced around nervously hoping that my word would stay true but honestly I didn't even know what her on-again-off-again ex-boyfriend Jake looked like, let alone be able to identify if he had for some reason come in. The little bell on the diner door as someone entered and Camryn's head whipped around looking frantically to see who it could be and lo and behold it was him. I saw her instantly get visibly uncomfortable but he hadn't seen her yet. "Cam is that him?"

"What the fuck? Why the fuck is he here?" she hissed in a hushed tone.

"I don't know? Maybe he's still in training or something they don't always put the trainees on the schedule," I whispered back. I'm not gonna lie he was good looking. Tall, tan, and fit looking, but hearing the horror stories of their relationship was enough to deter anyone from getting with that hot mess. "Cam, maybe we should just go. I'm not sure we should be here with everything that's happened with y'all."

"Nope, let's stay, with any luck he'll be our server too right?" Her voice goes up an octave out of nervousness. I can tell that she's trying to hide her insecurity with the situation behind bravery but anyone could see right through it.

Our server, a mid-aged woman named Chrissie came over, "Hey Lily, today it's Jake here's last day of training with me, so he'll be taking care of you and your friend." Camryn instantly gave me a panicked look and I'm sure I gave her the same right back as he began to ask us what we'd like to drink and we completely tuned him out leaving him to ask another time or two as we stuttered out our answers. The entire situation was just awkward and tense, I knew about Camryn and Jake's relationship from the hundreds of times that she would walk into our locker room in the morning either crying and ranting over something he'd done wrong or gushing about something cute he had said or done. I realized though that he had no idea who I was or that I knew about all of this even though he had definitely been to many of our volleyball games.

After Camryn and I finished eating, she had to head out to get ready for an event later in the evening. I stuck around talking to my manager about how long I wasn't going to be working while I adjusted to college life just 30 minutes away and how I definitely would not be able to work while volleyball season was going on.

I walked over to Chrissie and she pulled me aside, "this new kid is cute, I could eat him up like a snack." Being in her late thirties, she was one of the oldest servers and was the mom to all of us keeping us in check, but she definitely knew how to crack a joke. Jake is definitely a piece of eye candy though.

"Chrissie, I've heard about him and it's nothing good. He's bad news, please keep him out of trouble," I plea and Chrissie shoots me a reassuring look. "Alright I'm getting out of here," I say as I start walking towards the door, but not before Jake could get some sly remark out that I paid no mind to. I sauntered over to him, and got in his face, a little close for comfort and sharply bit out, "If you know what's good for you, you'll stay the hell away from Camryn. I swear to God if you so much as text her one time I will come and break your nose. Understood?" He stood there surprised and just nodded as I walked out the door and plopped into my car.

Starting my car to get the air going, I sat there for a minute thinking about what Camryn had told me previously about their relationship. More than once she had come into the locker room crying over him, the most recent incident happening at a game when we were on the court together and he showed up in the stands leaving her to have a full blown panic attack on the court and sidelines when she had to get pulled off for it. Her dad, as well as mine had basically chased him out of the gym and he got banned from going to any extracurricular school events with threats of being arrested if he even attempted to. Prior to that I knew he had scared her, one time they were fighting in the car and he pulled off the road, got out of the car, punched a tree, then got back in and silently seethed for a while before he took her home. Another time, when they were supposedly off, she was at a burger joint with a few friends, a couple being boys, and he showed up, grabbed her, and dragged her out as they fought out in the parking lot. I don't know much about this instance but I do know that the clerk working was threatening to call the cops because it looked like he was going to hit her. At the very least he had some serious anger issues and she was scared shitless most of the time, but still found herself wrapped up in him.

The only other thing I know about their relationship is that her parents tried to get a cease and desist and restraining order on him, but were ultimately unsuccessful due to the need for concrete evidence for the orders to go through. All I know is that Jake is bad news. With that I pulled out of the parking lot of the diner, going home to get ready to head back up to campus.