Blind Ambition | ✓

16 | Diners & Diatribes

Have you ever walked into a room and realized people were just talking about you? A sudden silence thickens the air and 40 pairs of eyes look up at you simultaneously, watching and waiting to see what circus trick you'll do next.

Well, have you ever walked into a room and realized people were explicitly talking about how you single-handedly fucked up homecoming and sent the crowned queen storming off near-tears?

I have. With a hangover, and the whole crew in tow. King of the Dancing Monkeys indeed.

As much as I tried to black it all out last night, I wasn't ignorant to the fact that what happened at Homecoming spread like wildfire. All it took was one person to see it go down - just one little spark to ignite the engine on the rumor train, and all trains left from here.

Broadway Diner was the only legitimate diner in town - meaning it was the only place that served breakfast (hangover food) 24/7, and on the weekends cliques and groups in every stage of recovery from whatever shit they got into the night before flocked to it like it was like the god damn watering hole in the African savanna. Cliques and groups that also took far too much of an interest in me this early in the morning.

Half the upperclassmen on the girl's soccer team at a table in the back corner eyed us as we got sat down at our usual booth by the front door. Bells jingled on the door, signaling every arrival and departure, and I made sure I had a good visual on it in case I needed to make a quick exit to avoid prying eyes...or to vomit. As I slid all the way across the sticky red plastic cushion of the booth, Jordyn waited until everyone else was seated before gently lowering herself onto the end of the bench next to Rochelle, making sure to avoid eye contact as she sat down. As far away from me as possible.

Most of us had crashed at Anthony's last night, although after taking an ineloquent, Oxy-induced wrecking ball to Jordyn's feelings, she drunkenly barricaded herself in one of the guest bedrooms we usually stayed in, leaving me to sleep in the upstairs den on the pull-out futon with Rochelle. With meaning as far away from each other as the space would allow, all while she hogged the blanket and advised me to keep my morning boner away from her backside unless I wanted to wake up with a black eye.

"Well if it isn't my favorite group of degenerates," Marcie said as she approached our table, her white hair far too much of a windswept mess for this early in the morning. Marcie had been managing Broadway Diner since we were all in middle school, and she'd been serving us bacon and pancakes from post pop-warner football game afternoons to post football party mornings. The only difference between then and now was how much we could all eat in one sitting.

"Don't lump us with these neanderthals," Rochelle scoffed and put her hand to her chest. "Me and Jordyn are upstanding citizens of this community."

"You're degenerates by association," Anthony jabbed Rochelle in the side, and she swatted his hand away. A tiny smile pulled at Jordyn's lips, but she kept her head down.

Marcie sighed and took a pen and notepad out from her apron. "Call it whatever you want, as long as you're not jerking each other off under my table. Five coffees?"

We gave Marcie a collective nod, and she returned shortly after with a tiny mug of milk and a container with packets of sugar. I instinctively reached for one and tore it open, pouring bits of sugar onto the wooden table. I grabbed the fake crystal salt shaker and dug the corner of it into the little pile of sugar, effectively balancing the shaker on its side. It was a stupid trick my dad used to do at restaurants when I was a little kid, and I was always so flabbergasted by how it worked. When I grew up, I realized there was no trick - just like I realized there was no trick to making my dad proud of me - it was just physics.