24 hour diner: where time stops

It’s 3:33 am, give or take. The clock on the wall above the kitchen pass has never quite run-on time. Sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. I’d given up on making sense of it. This place was the worst rated in town, but it was open 24 hours so it could be forgiven. Hazy orange light filtered about the diner, with the occasional flash of headlights winking at the windows. The air was thick, the ticking of the clock the only noise to cut through it.

27 more minutes.

I nursed a cup of coffee in my hands. I’d poured it some time ago but hadn’t taken a single sip. I’d merely watched the steam on its surface curve and fold, eyes unfocused. Mesmerised. I had been anxious and jittery all day, but now when it really came down to it my mind came up completely blank. I was tired, so tired. I was very aware of my heart beating, slow, lethargic even. My eyelids felt heavy.

22 more minutes.

My head snapped up as the bell at the door jingled. My body tensed, tightly sprung. A worn looking bearded figure shuffled inside. I let out a long breath. Maybe I wasn’t so calm after all. I stared at the man’s back as waddled his way over to a booth and collapsed into the lap of its scarlet leather.

19 more minutes.

A bored looking waitress takes the man’s order. He wants eggs. There aren’t any eggs. He orders waffles. She gets to work behind the counter. She’s chewing gum, with her mouth open. I know this because I can see it across the room. It's pink, dancing out from between her teeth, ducking and weaving about her molars. I realise I haven’t blinked in a very long time. I shift in my seat before turning to face out the frosted window.

14 more minutes.

I have to pee. I haven’t drunk anything all day but all of a sudden, my body feels weak and my limbs all floppy. I stand up in my seat and roughly push off the back of the booth in the direction of the bathrooms. Panic climbs up my throat and forms a lump,

What if I take too long? What if I leave and he arrives and he sees I’m not there?

I shake my head a little and continue my way to the bathroom. Don’t be stupid. You’ve got 14 minutes.

9 minutes.

My palm sits flush against the cool steel of the bathroom door as I pass back through into the hazy interior of the diner. Before I’ve even had the time to fully register the scene before me, my stomach flips. Like it did on tower of terror in the 7^th grade. Anticipation, more, and then right when you’ve started to get your bearings, you’re tearing towards the ground at 60 miles per hour and your internal organs feel like they’re still floating up some fifty metres above you. That’s what it felt like when I saw him, when we’d gone on tower of terror in 7^th grade. Sometimes it felt like butterflies, like the ones we’d caught on the biology field trip in high school. Like buttery sunlight and the whisper of warm wind on my cheeks. But it hadn’t felt that way in a while, and now it felt like cement was clogging up my arteries and weighing down my heart. Each step towards him, I grew heavier.

-3 minutes.

His bus had gotten in early, isn’t that neat? OH, AND THIS PLACE HASN’T CHANGED EITHER. The clock is running a little behind, but it always has hasn’t it? Yes. Am I hungry? No. He isn’t either. Isn’t this weather such a nice change from last years heat?

-8 minutes.

His hands are wrapped around a mug. He hasn’t drunk. The cuticles of his nail beds are frayed. He’s saying something now, about timetables and dorm rooms. I don’t really process it; I just watch the way hips lips are moving. A small smile here and there, his eyes wander about the diner. The register, the ceiling, the coffee pot. Anywhere but my own. I can’t quite muster the heart to listen. A sadness has settled about my shoulders, and I feel watery. How peculiar, to feel so foreign with someone who looks, feels and smells so familiar.

-16 minutes.

We’re both quiet now, although truth be told I hadn’t said much to begin with. The silence surrounds us in the warm thick air. I feel his eyes on me. I know I should look up, but I feel a hitch in my throat, and I don’t trust myself. I tighten my hands around my mug a little and draw it a little closer.

He says my name. I look up.

His eyes had always been such a warm brown. I’d nearly forgotten. Like caramel lattes from the café up the road after school right when the snows had set in. They gave me the same feeling.

I hold his gaze but the lump in my throat holds too. Eyes searching mine, unblinking, questioning.

He says my name again, softer this time. I still don’t speak.

He asks me why I asked to meet.

I stare into the pools of his eyes, and I think back to every time the memory of his face had played across my mind in the past year. When we were snowed in at his family Christmas. When we’d blown a tire on the highway out of town on the way to a party. When he’d had to carry me home after spraining my ankle at the ice-skating rink. School lunches, gym classes, senior dances, and every millisecond in-between.

Our hands are centimetres apart, and all I want to do is stretch out and wrap my hands around his. Feel the warmth beneath his palms and remind myself of the comfort and love that had been so real.

But I don’t.

I release a long slow breath. When I speak my voice comes out shakier than I would have liked.

‘I just wanted to say hi’

He isn’t looking at me any more now, and I feel the warmth of his presence draw back a little. The line of his mouth is sitting a little differently.

I stare at the lids of his eyes as he stares at the floor. We speak again, then. He’d better get going. It is late. Wouldn’t want his parents to worry. I nod. I ask him to say hi to lily and dexter for me. He says  he will.

I watch his breath fill the chilly night air as he exits the diner, pausing in the doorway. For a moment, I think he might turn back around. The icy air creeping in from the open doorway feels sharp in my lungs. But then the bell jingles and the door swings close. The warm thick air closes back around me, and the hazy timeless silence sets back in. I stare down at the surface of my coffee, now cold, and watch the ripples set about by the tears dripping off my chin.