Page 71 of Last Letters to Ara
The booth across from me snags my attention and I smile. If it weren’t for this diner and their amazing waffles Theo had mysteriously heard so much about, I probably would’ve never seen him again after the night we met. I would’ve never gotten to know this version of myself, the one who wants to find it in herself to be brave. The one who kissed her best friend and has spent the last month reliving the memory of what it felt like.
This diner holds something just as precious as the time I spent here with Dad. It holds my present, and what I’m starting to think could be my future, since the morning it sat in the booth across from me. Looking back to the seat Dad used to take in front of me, I reach over and stroke the table lovingly. It’s time I stop living in my past, otherwise, the fears and failures which live there will prevent me from having any kind of a future.
“I’m not leaving you behind, Dad, I’m just accepting my new future,” I whisper to his empty seat.
Moving across the aisle, I take my new seat opposite from where Theo first sat, taking a deep breath. It feels right.
Susan makes her way to my table with a friendly, but confused, look. I’m going to have to finally tell her. “Good morning, sweetheart! Are you guys changing it up for today?”
I give her a reassuring smile, just to make sure she knows I haven’t lostallmy marbles. “Actually, I think I’ll be sitting here from now on.”
“Well, okay then, darling! When is the birthday boy arriving? I’d love to sneak some candles into his waffles again.” The memory makes my heart constrict. Susan manages to remember his birthday every year, despite him begging her to forget.
This is what Dad loved about this place. He felt the world was getting so fast-paced and commercialized that people forgot to slow down to remember people. Not Susan. I mentally prepare myself to deliver the news.
“Susan, I know I should have told you earlier, but I hadn’t accepted the truth of it myself... even now.” Her smile falters the slightest bit, but I force myself to get it out. “Dad... he, uh... he passed away. Cancer.”
She presses her hands over her mouth with a small gasp.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I was struggling to deal with it on my own and I didn’t want to upset–”
I’m cut off by Susan scooting into the booth next to me, wrapping me into a hug. Something about Susan’s embrace is surprisingly comforting, so I hug her back, realizing how much I needed it.
“You have nothing to apologize for.” She pulls back after a minute, and her watery eyes look straight into mine. “Your father was a great man, you must miss him so much.”
Eyes brimming and voice not working, I nod furiously as the tears start to fall and I’m hit with an undeniable truth.
Today is going to fucking suck.
Every day that he’s not here is going to fucking suck.
“I’ll be right back, honey. Please don’t go anywhere.” Susan gets up, heading over to the order station, and after a while, I see her coming back with two plates of food. She sets a plate in front of me, and then puts the other plate in front of herself as she sits across from me. “Mind if I join you?”
Surprisingly, I don’t. “I could use the company.”
“When did it happen?”
“New Year’s Eve.”
She shakes her head. “I had no idea that he was fighting cancer.”
“Neither did I.” Susan rightfully looks confused, so I explain. “Dad never told me about the cancer. Supposedly he found out just a few months before he passed, and there was nothing they could do. He didn’t want our years of happiness to be tainted by the months it took for it to end.”
A sad smile graces her face. “He always was such a willful man, wasn’t he?”
“He really was.” Stubborn ass is maybe how I would have put it, but it doesn’t change the fact that he will always be my favorite person.
“How are you holding up?”
“I mean, I’m functioning, but I guess it depends on your definition of okay.” I grimace. “I have a friend who’s been helping me fill the time. You met him, actually.”
“Is that the handsome young man who showed up here that morning?”
“The very one.”
“He looks like James Dean.”
“He does,” I say with a smile, having always thought the same thing.
