Bleed by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Author:Laurie Faria Stolarz
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Disney Publishing Worldwide
Published: 2006-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 11:20 A.M. WEST COAST TIME, 2:20 P.M. EAST COAST TIME

This is just a little too real for me.

I did love you. Just not anymore.

I’m sorry, Robby.

I can see her running down the sidewalk, that yellow sundress whipping up in the back with each stride. But I can’t chase after her. I won’t. Even if it kills me. I will sit here and count as high as it takes, will picture a boy and his dad flying kites by the seashore, but I will not go after her. Will not beg her forgiveness for whatever I did wrong: Should I have brought flowers? A poem? Maybe I shouldn’t have hugged her like that right away. I will not force her to listen to my side. I clench my fingernails into the vinyl booth seat and promise myself this over and over. And over. Until I can finally take normal breaths.

With a glass of ice water, I swallow down the image of Kelly running away from the diner, away from me, and I’m able to unclench my fingernails. I think I’m sweating, that it’s visible all over my face. I take a napkin from the dispenser and wipe at my forehead and the back of my neck. The waitress, a pudgy, pimply, straight-out-of-band-practice misfit, is looking at me weird, like she’s scared for me.

Maybe I’m scared for me, too.

She holds one side of her tangerine-colored hair back and reinserts a red silk flower, smiling at me the whole time, like she wants to come over. I take another sip of ice water to ward her off, like maybe she’ll leave me alone if she sees me eating and drinking. I pick up my fork and poke at the sausage links.

“How are you doing?” she chirps, standing over me now, head to knee in pink-and-white waitress garb.

“Fine.” I fork-slice off the butt-end of the sausage link.

“More coffee?”

“No thanks.”

“Are you sure? You look like you could use a little perking from the percolator.” She laughs at her ridiculous pun, flings the rag she’s holding over her shoulder, and heads toward the counter to get a fresh pot.

I puncture my fork into the sausage and put it up to my mouth, feel it on my lips—pickled with grease, hot and bumpy. The spicy steam—a blend of fried pork, black pepper, cumin, and garlic—hits against my upper lip, reminding me of Sunday brunches after church five and a half years ago, the way my mother used to make them.

Five and a half years since homemade sausages. Five and a half years of thinking about them, pretending it was them in my mouth, on my tongue, and between my teeth, instead of lukewarm cereal, undercooked toast, and still-frozen-in-the-middle, sorry-excuse-for sausages. And yet, I can’t even take a bite. Don’t even want them now.

“Are you from around here?” The waitress is back. She fills my mug up with steaming black coffee and then reaches into her apron pocket to throw down four or five of those mini plastic creamers.

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