Amazingly, he hadn't been too upset. In fact, his only comment had been a somewhat doleful, "I should have known you were too good to be true."
Skye had smiled. She promised they could still be friends, and he'd agreed whole-heartedly. After all, he supplied, she'd need a good friend while Taylor was away on tour.
Now, she lay on her bed, simply remembering the way his lips felt on hers.
Isaac sat in a booth at a small diner a few miles out of Tulsa. He was alone, with the exception of a few truck drivers. He was waiting for a waitress to come and take his order. Maybe a full stomach would drive away the gnawing hurt of lonelinees.
He'd been away from home for too long, he noted. All of his friends were from his early high school years. Most of them had either forgotten him or gone off to college. He tried to remember their names, but the few that came to mind he knew had left in August to become another social security number on a roster card. He glanced around the bedroom. His mother's words rang in his head. "Why don't you get out and have some fun, sweetie?"
He'd gotten out all right. But if this was fun, he was certain he was getting way too old. Too old? At 19? Was that possible?
"Sorry, sorry," came a raspy, tired voice. "Can I help you?"
Isaac looked up at her. Her face was young, but seemingly exhausted. Her plain brown hair was in a messy bun on top of her head, contained by a hairnet. Her sloe eyes had world-weary dark circles under them, and their lids drooped dangerously over the darkness of the irises. "I would like some of this stew, here," he told her, pointing to a dish on the menu.
"Very well," she said, scribbling what he had told her on a small sheet of paper. As she wrote, he noticed her belly that caused the aqua-colored button-up uniform that she wore to bulge. Her white tights trailed down into some worn out old sneakers, and she stood with her legs slightly apart so that she could keep her balance.
He searched for her nametag. Just before she could turn and leave, he said to her, "Thank you, Jerry."
She turned, and gave him a baffled, lopsided grin. "Isaac, right?"
He was as surprised that she knew his name as she was he. "Right," he confirmed.
"Thanks," she said, her voice more silken than before.
Then, she turned and hurried back to the kitchen to turn in his order to the cook.
