Within/Without

chapter five.

Val - present day

I'm not sure why I'm here again, or maybe I am. Maybe it's that annoying thrumming within my chest, like I know somehow, that he's going to be there, waiting for me. And even if he is—what then? What does any of this matter?

I can't get too excited.

I can't get too excited, but I am anyway. I feel like a teenager again, whose heart flutters at the first word a boy ever speaks to her.

God, I must be stupid.

The diner's bell chimes above my head, and the waitress, Kimmy, looks up from behind the register, her eyes narrowing as she does. I fish around in my pocket until I recover my wallet, and wave it at her. She grunts and goes back to wiping down the counter.

It's certainly not the nicest place to be. At one in the morning, most people are out on the town clubbing or grabbing drinks or taking long night drives. The select few are actually doing what you're supposed to be doing at one AM—sleeping. And much fewer people than that are here, in a 24-hour diner that stinks of grease and weak air freshener, with walls painted the color of toothpaste.

I scan the bright red booths. There's an old man slowly nursing a hamburger. A family of four probably resting from a road trip, guessing by the map spread out between them and the way the dad keeps furiously circling things. My eyes even land on a few fellow college students, most of which are drunk or mentally checked out or both—but none of them have the chin-length red hair or the faraway look in their eyes or the chip-toothed grin that I came here hoping to find.

"Val?"

I jolt at the sound of my nickname, and whirl. Simon's in the booth behind me, looking up at me with an odd sense of hope in his eyes. In his brown fleece-lined jacket and wire-rimmed reading glasses, he looks almost out of place here, like a photoshopped image. God, I think. You really are a nerd.

"Valerie," he corrects all of a sudden, taking his reading glasses off. As I approach, I notice him slam his journal shut. I decide not to ask. "I meant—Valerie."
"Val is fine," I say, sliding in across from him.

"Oh," Simon says, and frowns. "It is?"

I keep looking at him, at the freckles spattered across his nose like paint flicked off a brush, at the mole that kisses his upper lip, at the slightly askew part in his fine hair. I keep looking at him, trying to remember where I've seen him before all of this, trying to pinpoint why it feels like...I know him. "Yeah," I reply with a shrug. A few indolent curls fall into my eyes; I move them away. "Sure."

"Well," Simon says, and smiles gently, without teeth. "Did you bring your wallet this time, Val?"

I toss it onto the table between us. The pages of his journal ruffle a little, and close themselves up again. I catch only a flash of quickly-scrawled ink. "I've gotten a lot more sleep than last time," I tell him. "Now I can actually hold a conversation."

Simon inclines his head. "I'm interested."

"Good," I say, and flag down Kimmy with a wave of my hand. "But first, coffee."

Minutes later there's a mug of black coffee steaming in front of me, and a latte with a blobby heart drawn in the milk steaming in front of Simon. He's pushed his journal to the side, but his fingers are still twitchy, as if just aching for a pen to be pressed into them. Writing is a hobby of mine. A helpful pastime. But the way Simon acts, it's like writing is his very heart—there is no him without a pen.

Needless to say, I'm fascinated.

"Tell me about yourself, Simon," I say, stirring my spoon around in the mug, listening to the clink clink of the metal against porcelain.