~ Past separated them, now pain will bring them together.~
A teenager Sofia Hayden, experiencing her falling apart family isolated herself slowly from everything that she held dear, especially from her best friend Max Wilder who had just realized hi...
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Sofia's car rolled to a stop before her diner, a puff of smoke gushed out from the car's behind. She closed her eyes briefly in disappointment.
Just last week, Johny, the full of himself mechanic of the area had worked on her car and declared in the end with determination that it wouldn't fart or cough out smoke anymore. But clearly that didn't turn out to be a reality, she would have throttled Johny if he regularly wasn't coming over to solve her many issues regarding car engines, water pipes, electric wires and heaters among many other things at both home and the diner while charging half of what he actually took from his customers. There was a favor she had done to him a couple years ago, and since then he was persistent to show how grateful he was to her.
Her eyes narrowed, the board above the diner written Mary's Diner on it was tilted sideways.
Why would the board always bend like that was a mystery.
It must be the wind, she had been guessing. Or it could also be her mother's spirit, trying to tell her something. After all, it was after her mother's name Sofia had named the diner.
She shook her head, clearing it of thoughts that would surely make her blood pressure rise high. She would have to just call Johny, the all rounder, later again to fix it.
Pushing the door open, she walked in. The jingling of bell had Simmy, the best of the three chefs of Mary's, look up from behind the counter. She had also just arrived, Sofia noticed.
"Bad morning?" Simmy raised a brow. "Has your aunt come back to torment you? With her wickedness managing to scorch you alive this time?"
Rolling eyes, Sofia walked past the booths, few of them had customers having breakfast.
"The witch has not returned, Simmy," she added after a pause, "Yet."
Walking round the counter then, she pushed open the door to her tiny office.
The office was at the corner between the cash-counter and kitchen, so, if the door was kept open she could keep an eye on both the places—which she did often. And if she craned her neck a bit from the desk, the aisle between booths would also become visible.
Simmy muttered back something but Sofia had already got inside the office. Putting down her satchel bag on the desk, she plopped down on the chair. And thoughts of Max rushed into her mind immediately--jumbling around with restless excitement, as if they had been just waiting for the golden opportunity of her having a moment of leisure.
Sofia sighed.
Now that she sat in the confinement of her tiny office, she wondered in horror if he was still mad at her.
But that was a long time ago, she consoled herself. And they were both just kids.
It was true that she had been foolish for doing what she did to him all those years ago, but that was how her teenage brain functioned while watching her family fall apart and things she hadn't ever experienced even in her nightmares becoming suddenly her reality.
