Trapped in Forever

47 ~ The Reason for Goodbye

A/N: Heeeeey. So I'm back! I was kind of hoping of coming back with tons of chapters for you but it didn't exactly turn out that way. I actually wrote better and more when I was here than when I was gone and that blew my mind so that's one reason I came back. Another I missed everyone! I missed messaging and everything Watty. But enough about my missing, I hope you enjoy the chapter and happy long weekend . . . for some anyway.

The thick and heavy scent of icing sugar and the humming of an electric beater beckoned me into the kitchen, past the swinging door with the silver hand plate worn gray and the kick plate at the bottom of the door, scuffed by my Converse as I dashed in and out of the kitchen, gripping the handles of wooden trays with painted vibrant green wines and the buds of flowers on the sides, either steaming or empty, and I kicked the door open one last time, already undoing the first three buttons of the waitress uniform, golden and black, and smelling like stale cigarettes, and letting my hair out of the constricting purple scrunchie that Sarah-Anne lent me. The soles of my feet hurt as I landed my foot back on the checkered tiling, the hum of the electric beater turning into a mechanical drone, and I contemplated taking them off and letting my bare feet rest on the tiles. Out in the dining area, there were only a few more businessmen, who were slowly shedding themselves of their suits—jacket first, and then the tie would loosen and then would be stuffed in their briefcases, and then they undid the buttons of their shirts and exposed their chest hair, of lack thereof—and they were mostly taking advantage of Mo’s free Wi-Fi and coffee refills than anything else. Somewhere, I imagined Sarah-Anne was shaking out a cigarette from her red and white carton of Marlboros and piercing it through the flame emitting from her Bic lighter.

In the kitchen, Albert was gone and his stripped dishcloth—gold and black, of course—was draped over the silver edge of the industrial sized sink, damp and wrinkled, and the room smelled like a mix of frying oil, icing, and murky water, and Orion was standing in front of one of the silver countertops, running the electric beaters through another silver bowl, the beaters occasionally scrapping against the metal sides, and there were a few bottles of food coloring beside his elbow, red and blue. He glanced up when he heard the sound of my Converse faintly slapping the tiles and the hinges of the swinging door creaking, and he stopped the beater with the click of a black switch, the drone stopping, and tapped the metal stems of the beaters against the bowl and shook off some of the remaining icing clinging to the beaters, dyed purple but with the swirls of red and blue embedded there too, like the green flecks in his hazel eyes. Outnumbered, but there nonetheless.

He chuckled as his gaze dropped from my face, possibly taking in the unruliness of my hair, just released from the scrunchie that wound it so tightly together, feeling free against my back and behind my arms, the flushness of my face, and the undone buttons of the uniform and how I shifted my weight to stop the dull ache in the soles of my feet. “You have that look only waitresses and mothers have,” he told me, dismembering the silver beaters from the machines, icing still faintly clinging to them, and he handed one to me. It felt heavy in my hands, pink from carrying that heavy tray back and forth from the kitchen to the rounded tables of impatient businessmen. “Like the sky could fall and all you’d want is a nap.”

I pressed my tongue against one of the silver sides of the mixer’s beater, feeling the cool material beneath the thick layer of purple and sugary icing, smooth on my tongue, and slumped against the wall until I decided to grip onto Orion’s jacket by the collar and his phone with my free fingers, lifted them off of the metal chair, and laid them on the floor and sat there. “Nap is an understatement,” I responded, tiredly, and licked the icing off one of the edges of the beater, glancing up to see him licking the icing off of his own beater, trying to undo his apron with his free hand, his elbow poised in the air as he tried to untie the knot with his five long fingers. After a moment, he gave up and simply gripped it by the black knot and lifted it over his head and draped onto a crate.