Where The Dandelions Grow

03 - Fated

Echo's POV

"Do you believe in love, O?" Hailey asks me as I swing slowly.

"Love?" She sits on the floor of the park, her hair braided in long box braids like they usually are. She told me she learned to do them herself because getting it done at a salon cost more than anyone was willing to pay for her. She is only fifteen, her mother would say. She doesn't need fancy hairstyles.

She nods. "Yeah, you know, love."

I shake my head. "Nah, I don't think so." There have been boys I found cute, but none I felt I ever loved or knew well enough to love.

Sitting in the park after school is what we've been doing ever since we were toddlers in daycare. When it was time for our parents to come pick us up, neither of them would come on time. Her parents, addicts, always forgot the time of dismissal, and my dad was always drunk and late. It happened day after day, so often even the staff would prepare to stay later in the day just to look after us two. They'd play with us as we run around the playground and give us snacks and make sure we were okay. Sometimes, our parents would completely forget to pick us up so the staff would drop us off individually when it became too late.

That's how we became friends. Call it a trauma bond: being left behind together.

"Do you love anyone?" I ask her back.

Seconds go by and she nods.

I raise my eyebrows and press my feet into the ground to stop myself from swinging. "Who. Tell me right now, Hailey."

She giggles. "You, ya' idiot!"

***

"Echo!" Greg calls out to me, snapping me out of the memory of Hailey. I clear my throat and look around, remembering that I'm at work, not sulking in my bed anymore. I cringe at the sudden pain and look down at my hand where it originates. I pull my hand out of the fist it sits in, my palms bleeding out of the crescent wounds again. I wipe it on the inside of my apron just before Greg walks up to me, wiping the sweat bulbs off his forehead with a rag. "What's going on with you?" He questions. "You've been distracted all day."

I shake my head. "Just a little tired, sorry."

"Today's a busy day; can't have you slackin' at the bar, sweat pee. You want to do tables instead and come back to 'tendering later?"

I set the glasses I'd been working on in front of the guys that paid for them and nodded. "Yes."

It's been a few days since I've been working at Happies and I take what I said back; it might be a source of income, but it doesn't block out those thoughts for long. In fact, sometimes, I find myself blanking out on the job thinking about Hailey and how much I missed having her around quite often or thinking about how when I get home, I question whether I should call that number back or not every night.

Grabbing my pen and notepad for taking down orders, I make my way to the diner part of the building just as a large group of guys walks in the front door. Immediately, their loud laughter and deep voices make curious heads turn only for a second. They don't look too old like most of the other men in this place, I'd assume they're all in their twenties at least. A wave of nervousness sets over me. Guys my age always made me uneasy to be around, especially when there was a group of them.

I can sense the judgment radiating from the group of four guys as they chose to sit in one of the booths.

I make it a mission to get to the last, doing all the other tables and bringing in their orders to the kitchen. Leaving the kitchen I run into Greg, "Doing okay so far?"