Her Weirdo

      “You’re insane!”

           The voice quickly faded by the rush of air entering her ears. The world around her turning to nothing but blurs of color, until the pressure of the wind shut her eyes. The path is clear to those who have faith.

           She was always told not to jump off bridges as a child. The classic, “If everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you?” line. Though this was a mountain, and she had a parachute, so it didn’t count. But she was doing it because a voice in her boyfriend’s dream said it. So maybe she was at fault. She heard the screams of her friends behind her. She felt bad, dragging them up to the tallest mountain in the county just to jump off of.

           Managing to crack her eye open she tried to take in the world around her, what blurred mess it was. She always loved this country, this land her and the people she loved called home. She lived her entire life here, in the great north. Though maybe not that north.

           For many years, her life consisted of helping at her fathers’ bar in the small town they resided. Or it was a diner that also had a bar, they had to compromise. Though she knew more about filing taxes and repairing that old arcade machine in the corner than cooking. And she was fine with that life, it was almost perfect.

           Until he came along and only added to the weirdness. She had to admit her town, despite being small, was pretty weird. Though she never thought much of it. Who was she to judge the sheriff having a wife and a husband, or that chick who lived in the woods who could pet a deer. Hell, she was the teenage girl people came to when their TV’s broke or their landlines stopped working. But then he came and introduced her to a new kind of weird.

           It was an average day at the diner when he came in. Tall, black hair that looked blue in the sunlight, lanky, and had a real pretty face. For a moment she thought he was just a very tall girl. But no, he was very much a guy. At least he sat like a guy when he came to the counter.

           “What can I get ya?” her father asked the stranger.

           “Just a cup of coffee,” he answered in a soothing voice.

           “How do you want it?”

           “However, you recommend.”

           Just as quickly as he came in, he left. She wondered if he even saw her, hell she was staring at him and his pretty face the entire time.

           She was surprised when he came back the next day, ordered the exact same thing, then left again! What the hell? Werido, she thought.

           For weeks it was the same thing. Every day nine thirty he would be there. And he never noticed her, not even when she sat right next to him. Granted she never dared try talking to him, he was a stranger, or a customer but still. He wasn’t one of the regulars who she could chat with while her father threw that same idiot deputy out. He was just, odd.

           “How old are you kid?” her father asked him once.

           “Sixteen,” he answered.

           Her father stroked his small beard. “Not too much older than my daughter.”

           “The girl who continues to stare at me like I’m an exotic animal?”

           “But you are though!” She shouted.

           And that’s how they had their first conversation. She learned that he was from down south, not south south, but middle-south which explained the accent. Apparently he came up north to collect an inheritance from his diseased mother. A woman who had been dead for thirteen years but his scumbag guardian never told him about.

           “Wait, you’re all alone?”

           He shook his head. “I’m staying with a friend and her sister. Very nice women they are.”

           “Oh, you mean the Lowenthal sisters?”

           He cocked his head. “I didn’t even tell you anything about them?”

           “I know, small town. You said a ‘friend and her sister’ but didn’t mention parents so, yeah, process of elimination I guess.”

           “You have a beautiful mind,” he said suddenly.

           Before she could respond her father shouted from the kitchen, “Flirt with my daughter and I throw you out!”

           Though that didn’t really stop them from whispering to one another. Didn’t stop her from sneaking out at twelve A.M to see him because he wanted to “catch the effervescent light from post-midnight stars”. Didn’t stop him from drawing her in that sketchbook he carries around. Didn’t stop her form crushing on him.

           When she realized she had a crush she was worried because she knew it wouldn’t last. This strange, pretty faced, weirdo will be gone as soon as he turns eighteen and gets his inheritance. But, like her fathers’ words, that didn’t stop her anyway.

           Even if she had a crush on this strange teenage boy she didn’t let that stop their friendship. Believe it or not, she enjoyed his long waxing monologues on art and life and love and the point of monologues themselves.

           “-For who can really say a monologue is ‘bad’? Monologues are the poetry of the soul, the music of the heart, the art of the ear. A monologue is for the speaker and speaker alone. No one monologues as a form of conversation. They monologue to be their true mind, their true self!”

           “Sure werido. And art is the orgasm of the eye right?”

           He gasped and smiled so wide she didn’t know if she should be worried. “Finally, another who understands!”

           She didn’t expect for him to ask her one night to meet him behind her father’s diner. She hadn’t expected to actually show up at the exact time he told her too. She hadn’t expected him to confess his feelings for her. She hadn’t expected for them to make out, at twelve A.M, under the stupid post-midnight effervescent stars, next to the trash cans and raccoons, for half an hour.

           She didn’t expect that pretty face to make her feel this way.

           She had a feeling her father knew what they were doing, i.e. sneaking out behind the diner to make out and kiss and do stupid teenage couple things. If he did he never said a thing about it.

           One day, when it was particularly packed in the diner, Mr. Weirdo (her weirdo) said, “The path is clear to those who have faith.”

           “What?”

           “It was a voice, in my dream,” he said solemnly, “I think it may have been my mother’s voice.”

           “How could you tell? Weren’t you like three when she died?”

           He put his elbows on the counter and hid his face in his hands. “Dreams are beautiful yet so confusing…”

           “What was it about?” She pressed.

           “I was… atop a mountain and there was this… angel? A woman with butterfly wings and she said, ‘The path is clear to those who have faith.’ She flew away and her bodyless voice told me to jump,” He explained, “so I did, no questions asked. But as I fell, I had a slow decent as if I had a parachute. And once I was safe on the ground my mother flew down to me and gave me a hug. I wonder what it means…”

           She thought about it for a moment, nudged his elbow with her own and said, “I might be able to help you out.”