Cozy • An Embry Story

.2

Four Years Later

I hate Sundays.
Absolutely hate them. I dread them all week long.

Sundays are suppose to be relaxing, the best day off at the end of week. Sundays are for sleeping in, church, grocery shopping, family dinners, but I spend every Sunday with him.

My job waitressing at the local dinner isn't that bad any other day of the week. With the Lodge right in between the town of Forks and the reservation, my morning and lunch rushes are filled with locals. Sundays are our slowest days, they should be easy, but I hate them.

Every week he sits at the same stool, orders the exact same truck load of food, and spends the whole morning watching me wait on him.

And this Sunday is no different.

Embry Call always comes in after the breakfast rush, just after the whole restaurant empties out for the rest of day. Then it's always just us in the entire building.

He's so tall and bulky now he has to bend at the neck and knees to fit through the door. He sits at his usual spot—the first stole at the counter that's closet to the waitress station.

The first Sunday that started this was years ago. I've been working here since I was sixteen and he's been eating here every Sunday since. A few years ago the boyish, scrawny Embry stopped coming to school. No one saw him for months. Then one Sunday I turned around and he was sitting in a packed booth with the other five huge shirtless guys.

Embry wasn't scrawny anymore. He was massive. Twice his original size, all muscle and at least 6'3. He wasn't the same. His long hair was clipped. And he gotten a tattoo that matched all of Sam Uley's bizarre group.

I had glanced at him for a second. Just a moment. I couldn't help myself, I couldn't believe it was him. I hardly recognized him. He caught my stare, holding it till he broke the plate he was eating off. He didn't say a word to me while I swept it up, but he's been coming in every Sunday since.

I wish it was Monday.

"What are we getting today?" I ask, pouring him a cup of coffee. He doesn't have to wait to order one anymore. He comes in every week looking exhausted, as if he's been up the night before. He always slumps against the counter like he needs it to support him. The bags under his eyes are purple and dark, and his eyes always blink shut till he downs a cup. So right when he sits, I give him a cup with four sugars and a bit of cream like he has it every week.

But he always orders something different to eat.

"A dozen eggs, a loaf of bread toasted and a whole packet of bacon." He doesn't even glance at the menu.

It should phase me, but he always orders that much food. Last week he ate a stack pancakes that I couldn't see over.

I don't bother with the manners that usually earn me my tips. I just put his order in then cross my arms over my chest. He watches me the entire time, calm and indifferent like he couldn't careless if I was there or not. His eyes never leave me. They burn into me while I keep myself busy, follow me wherever I go, stare at me point blank when I hand him his food.

And just like every week; he stares, eats his weight in food, doesn't say a thank you or goodbye and leaves a huge twenty five dollar tip.