Page 3 of Silver Edge
Believe in me? No one ever believed in me. I didn’t believe in me, but I had to try. “Fine.” To hell it was fine. One look at my doppelganger and I knew I’d never make it. I would never survive playing the sober sister role. It was asking too much. I wanted to help. To pay back the community and all they’d done for me. To help the former me. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t be the soft, sensitive, strong support person she needed.
“Great. Find her some clean clothes and get her bathed. I’ll be back to check on you both before dinner.” Ton gently placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “You’re safe here.” Then he left. Left me to repay the debt I owed the Community, one I had hoped he’d never collect on.
Unable to look directly at her, I kept her in my peripheral vision. “Come on. I’ll heat up the shower. The handle labels are backward.” I headed for the bathroom down the hall, but I wanted to go farther, beyond the restrictive walls of the psych ward, to a new life.
But if I ran away, I’d be shunned by the Community. I’d be blacklisted, never allowed to come back. I’d be alone.
Alone?
Perfect. I’d leave tonight, a few hours after Ton called lights out.
I eyed the girl trailing behind me. The world of pain and debilitating emotions she faced required strength and understanding, not a mess of a person who would resort to hiding in the corner with her hands over her ears.
If only I wasn’t…me. I would help and be a functioning member of the community. Paying back the love and support they’d given me. Save the next soul that stumbled through the double doors into a white-walled welcome wagon of support.
Ton had a new project now. Hopefullyshewouldn’t be a disappointment.
Chapter Two
I slipped my notepad into my apron pocket and followed the sunshine-colored tile past the hostess stand of Midtown Diner. Same ritual I’d followed after the morning meeting each day for the last week. Sizzles warned of an approaching fajita platter, so I pinched my nose to guard against the overwhelming onion aroma and sidestepped. This time I avoided colliding with the solid mass of attitude who waited tables one station over.
People rushed by, but I managed to X them out of the equation and concentrated on the Midtown Diner sign swinging to the beat of the house band. In the first hour at my new job, I discovered the rhythmic combination provided a focal point for my ears and eyes, allowing me to keep from having an epic attack. An epic attack of attitude. My ultimate defense against all that was evil in the world. I needed this job if I was truly going to be independent, so I had to play happy waitress.
“Scarlet, move it! I didn’t hire you to stand around daydreaming all day.” The stout, balding general manager snapped his fingers two inches from my nose. “I know Ton said you were the artistic type, but I don’t have time for daydreamers.”
The world began to whirl around me once more, bombarding me with light and sound. I knew I couldn’t stay buried in my head. I had a job to do. A job that Ton had recommended me for despite myissues.
I shoved from the wall, plastered on a smile like I was in a tooth-whitening commercial, and greeted my next table of customers. “Good evening.”
“It’s about time.” Without waiting for my reply, a woman launched into a tirade, the string of words pounding faster than a food chopper grinding my skull.
I dug my half-bitten nails into my palm for distraction. Pain, self-stimulation, it didn’t matter what the social worker called it. It was my only means to control my desire to flee. “Can I take your order?” What did she know? She’d removed me from my foster home and dropped me in a juvenile facility after my psycho foster mom caught my foster dad and I partying. The social worker told me I used drugs to numb pain, and to be touched, but what my foster dad did was wrong. No charges were filed, and I paid the price. No way I could live in a center. If it wasn’t for Ton I’d be dead.
The woman quirked her platypus lips, but they remained puckered as if she’d battled a Dyson vacuum cleaner and lost. “Hello?” A hand waved in front of my eyes, snagging my attention to discover her eyeing me with the look of a nun analyzing a prostitute. Her nose crinkled, then she returned to the menu in front of her. “I’ll have the Fiesta salad, no cilantro, no corn, no meat, and the dressing on the side.”
My eyes rolled faster than a drunk on his fiftieth shot of tequila. Although my mind had acknowledged theno attitudememo from the owner, my body had ignored it. “So, you want lettuce with a side of dressing?”
The Marilyn Monroe wannabe sat forward, clearly appalled, but the guy at her side tossed his dark waves back from his forehead and stretched with an ease of comfort in any setting. “Well, she has a point.”
Marilyn smacked his arm before her hand drew circles on his overly tight T-shirt–covered chest. “Oh, honey.” Her rooster cackles echoed, bouncing off the walls, other tables, and my eardrums.
I fought my desire to launch her out the front door to spare the patrons, myself, and the dead from her grinding-metal laugh.
“Do you need to write this down, young lady?” Her condescending tone bulldozed my willpower to maintain my facade of normal.
No. My brain cells haven’t been murdered by bleach, thanks.The words clawed for release, but I managed to hold them back. “And you, honey? What would you like?” Okay, maybe one snarky remark slipped.
The man held his knuckles to his lips as if contemplating his order, but his tight cheeks indicated his restrained laughter. He was handsome. Not good-looking handsome, stop-the-sensory-swirling-world handsome. Him. Me. No noise, no lights, no smells. Too bad I couldn’t live in my crazy with him.
The woman’s head spun food-processor quick my way. No matter how hard I tried, the unbearable sensation of her eyes penetrating my soul cowed me intobad dogposition. My mother’s words from childhood whispered in my head.It takes practice to look a person in the eyes.
The dark-haired man-filet cleared his throat. “I’ll have a cheeseburger.”
“Want anything special?” The velvety tone of my voice matched his smile.
“No, regular is good enough for me.”
I tucked the pad back into my apron. “I’ll have that right out for you and Monroe wannabe.”
