Let Me Be Your Home
Chapter 1

I sat in a small, local diner. For a weekday, it was busier than I was used to seeing. It was a small town so I figured everyone here was familiar with one other. A tight knit community that reminded me of Stars Hollow.

I glanced around, sipping on my chocolate milkshake. I looked at the people surrounding me.

I found it interesting to take note of the people around me, to wonder who they were and make up stories about their lives. My life was one big and meaningless disappointment. It made it much more appealing to pay more attention to others, rather than focus on myself.

A mother sat with her son, he looked to be around the age of nine or ten. She was smiling down at her son, pure adoration in her eyes. The boy was a mess, frankly. He had ketchup on the corners of his mouth. His burger fell apart in his hands, his chocolate shake dripping down onto his white t-shirt. Still, his mother smiled and helped him hold onto the burger. She hardly paid note to the mess the boy was making.

A group of teenagers sat near the back in a booth. Two of them, a brown haired boy and blonde girl sat awfully close, laughing and making fluttery eyes at one other. They were in a relationship, love-sick and very comfortable with PDA. Across from them sat two boys wearing tee’s with school logos on them. They all were laughing dreadfully loudly and pushing each other around.

What a happy bundle.

At one table, a boy who also looked like he was in high school sat alone. His head was stuck in a book while a half eaten sandwich sat in front of him. He looked very focused on his book that must’ve been very interesting. I guess books could be though. Fictional characters were usually better than real people. He looked the complete opposite to the other group of teenagers.

There was also an elderly couple sitting together with their hands intertwined. Wow, who would think relationships last that long? They seemed happy, smiling and laughing weakly.

“Can I get you anything else, dear?”

I looked up. I sat at the counter. The man behind the counter was quite old, maybe sixty. His head was slightly balding and he wore glasses low on his nose. He offered me a kind smile, looking at me with his grey eyebrows raised.

I adjusted on the stool I sat on and shook my head, smiling out of politeness. “No, thank you, sir.”

I brought my attention to my chocolate milkshake.

It was very sweet.

The pathetic situation I was sitting in right now, the very one where I sat in this diner and observed people until I had nothing left to think about but my chocolate milkshake – that almost made me want to laugh. How pointless does life have to get for one to spend the night staring at their milkshake?

To leave this planet was a thought that occurred to me often. It was a very tempting thought – a thought I was surprised I hadn’t gone through will thus far.

My life didn’t offer me anything that made me want to stay here.

The only reason I remained breathing on this wandering star we call Earth was simply because I was convinced there was a reason I must still be here.

Maybe I was desperate to replace a meaning behind my utterly lurid existence.

But really, with no family nor friends, no home to go to, a circadian routine that consisted of visually examining a milkshake- with essentially no reason to wake up in the morning, why was I still here? I hardly had any willingness to continue breathing. I was merely just subsisting, floating through life with hardly a thought in my head. Somehow I figure, that if there is a God or any higher power up there, he must be keeping me on my feet for some bizarre reason. Maybe that’s wishful thinking but if there is a reason, one day I’ll replace out what it is.

“Dean, you haven’t stopped by in a while, son. Where have you

been?” The old man behind the counter, who I was sure was the owner of this diner, was now talking to a man who had just come in. He was standing a few feet away from me. I couldn’t see him because of the hood that remained over my head.

“Just busy, Ben. You know the crazy schedules.” The guy beside me had a deep and masculine voice. He let out a short chuckle that sounded almost forced.

This man named Dean pulled out a stool that was one away from mine and sat down.

“Would you like your usual?” Ben, the old man asked him with a neighbourly smile. Made sense – small town life made one local familiar with another.

I never had a sense of familiarity and neighbourliness like that in my life. The thought of it made me want to laugh- I could not imagine making small talk with the barista I got coffee from every morning.

“Ah, just a mug of Anne’s hot cocoa tonight. Thanks.” This time, Dean’s voice sounded less tense.??

“Right up, son.” Ben walked off, going behind into the kitchen.

I continued sipping on my milkshake slowly, letting my tastebuds devour each bit of the chocolaty goodness. It felt nice to take a minute to appreciate the sweetness of what I was consuming as sometimes days would go by without me eating a single proper meal.

The countertop was white granite. I could appreciate how modernized this diner was. If it were retro, I would have already left with a headache.

From the way I stared at the granite counter, my gaze could have burned holes through the surface. As if this countertop were the most intriguing thing to exist.

It really wasn’t.

“Here you go, son. Let me know if you need anything else.” Ben slid a mug of hot cocoa toward dean. He was about to walk away when he glanced at me again.

“Doing alright? Get you anything else?”

I brought my head up and looked at the man. I forced a tight smile. “I’m alright, sir. Thank you.”

Ben returned a smile before walking off.

“Quiet—but polite.”

Dean’s voice was inviting, amused.

I looked over, unsure if he were talking to me or someone else. He was young, maybe a year or two older than me. His brown hair was swept upwards, towards the side. His eyes were strikingly blue, slightly grey. Gunmetal. They looked like the ocean. His ear was pierced.

A bemused little smirk laid on his face as he peered at me.

I raised an eyebrow, my face straight. “Would you be talking to me?”?

He glanced from side to side before his eyes settled on me once again. “Is there anyone else in the proximity?”

I pulled my hood off my head. I couldn’t help narrowing my eyes. “Then clearly I look more inviting than I thought because I didn’t know I was talking to you.”?

He didn’t seem offended by my bluntness. In fact, he looked more beguile “Polite one moment, snippy the next. How does that work?”

“Does it work? Doing a psychoanalysis on strangers? If anything, it’s a little creepy.” Why was he talking to me? I just wanted to finish my milkshake in silence.

He let out a quiet laugh, shaking his head lightly. “Well, aren’t you charming?”

I looked at him for a moment longer. Then, I pulled my hood back over my head and resumed staring at my milkshake. I sipped the last of it before pulling some bills out of my pocket and dropping them on the counter.

I stood, ready to leave when Dean spoke again. “Are you only polite to elderlies, then?”

Oh, I’ve seen guys like him before.

They think they’re oh-so charming, that anyone will swoon over their mediocre attempts to be flirty. God, I much rather bash my head into the granite counter.

I didn’t have time for this.

Or the better way to put it, I didn’t have the?energy?for this.

I turned to look at him, eyes narrowed. “Cancel my subscription. You’re voice is giving me a migraine.”

Then, I left.