DAMAGED

COURT

I looked at my phone and set it back down on the table. This was stupid. This was not a date except for the fact that by all standards it was. I just wanted to sit across from her and drag out the meal as long as possible, before she shut down and ran away again. Or before I did. The similarities in our personalities were disconcerting, granted hers were more justifiable.

"Hey." I glanced up at her like I hadn't been checking my phone every five minutes. She wasn't smiling but she was here.

"Hey." My tone was flat. This was ridiculous. I was trying far too hard to act aloof. She slid into the opposite side of the booth, her dress shifted and I caught a brief glimpse of skin before she cleared her throat. My ears flushed with heat. I was as bad as a teenage boy trying to watch for unguarded moments when I might catch a glance at her cleavage.

"There isn't a whole lot there so stop staring." Her mouth quirked up into something resembling or was at least in the same range as a smile. I pushed the menu across the table and when she picked it up to read she disappeared behind it.

"How nice are these rooms, after the Bates Motel I almost cried I was so happy." I thumbed through the menu while hers remained still. This was so fucking awkward it felt painful.

"This is not a date." Her voice was slightly muffled behind the menu. I smiled at her since she couldn't see my face.

"If you say so." I quipped back. I was too distracted to eat. She was only a face with dark glasses and rigatoni or eggplant was far from what I was thinking about. It was a mystery how a body as small as hers could host such an aggressive personality. She set the menu down and took her glasses off, setting them beside her.

"What are you eating?" I stared at her, she smelled like clean sheets. "Seriously, why are you staring so much?" I shook my head and looked down at the italicized descriptions of Italian food. I couldn't think of a damn thing to order. So I panicked and said the first entrée that made it sound like I had given this some thought.

"Spaghetti Putanesca. You?" Nonchalant, I was going for nonchalant and praying I had not ventured into douche.

"Pizza." I laughed. She was a girl who loved her pizza. Now I felt like a moron, I had no idea what I ordered but I was just going with it.

"So that thing on the bus and the diner...this tension even now, would you say its because we have toxic personalities or is it sexual?" She said it with her hands clasped and resting on the menu. The shock I felt I contained.

"Are you always this blunt, this aggressive?" She shrugged her shoulders in response. "I would say it's both. We are not oil and vinegar. We are both vinegar. It's overpowering. I am madly attracted to the hateful expressions you make at me; I want all that fierce hostility and the weeping girl as well. I just don't want them to keep." I blanched at my own bluntness. I just said in no uncertain terms that we were both awful and that I wanted her the way she was but for sex only. She laughed. I was an asshole and I got a genuine smile and a laugh? Vinegar and vinegar indeed.

"That's not going to happen but I appreciate the honesty. The weeping girl is not for you or anyone. She is mine and mine alone. We are vinegar except we smell a bit better post shower. The fierce hostility and the mean faces you will probably get more of than you can handle. Enough of it to drive you back to the other bus with your brother." She turned at the sound of shoes quietly coming to a stop before us.

"Hello, I am going to be your waiter tonight. My name is James. I will take your drink orders first." He was talking to us but staring mouth partly agape at her. She smiled up at him, a real genuine smile. I swallowed back a hundred insults and ordered. "I'll have coffee." He nodded absently.