The way this sleazebag is looking at me, only reminds me of the aversion that I have towards the opposite sex.
Whenever I think of men, it only makes me think of my asshole of an absentee father and the perverted men who frequent this fine establishment, like the one seated at the table in front of me right now. Then, of course, there was foster father number six, the sick bastard who thought it was a good idea to try to grope his sixteen-year-old foster daughter. Asshole. I’d quickly put him out of commission, kneeing him squarely in the balls before reporting his ass to the police. But the memory of his sweaty hands on my skin still makes me shudder.
I scribble down this loser’s order and make my way to the kitchen. I’m halfway across the diner when I pass by a crowded table of rowdy jocks. Although I pay very little attention to my fellow students at my latest high school, these faces look familiar. Guys from my high school, most of them on the football team, I think, but I don’t pay close enough attention to be sure. Not the usual clientele and all clearly under-aged but tonight, they’re here all the same. Great.
I don’t expect them to recognize me. I keep a near invisible profile at school and working at a place like this doesn’t exactly make me popular at high school number ten or it makes me popular for all the wrong reasons. Frankly, I don’t care.
I stopped caring what other people think a long time ago. I’ve never stayed in one place long enough to make friends or to care what the kids think of me in whatever high school I happen to be.
I walk past their table without so much as a hint of recognition in most of their faces, although I don’t miss the word whore being whispered by one or two who apparently are aware that I happen to be a fellow student.
It’s not the first time and I can’t even bring myself to feel offended. But if only they knew. I haven’t even so much as kissed a guy before and I sure as hell haven’t had a boyfriend or even gone on a single date. I’ve never once been tempted. Without my even noticing, something like a stone wall has built itself up around me. Hell, I’m starting to think that my heart itself is made of stone.
“Jazmine, can you take table six?” Ricky calls out from behind the counter. Ricky is just as bad as his patrons, but that works well for me—he probably knows I’m under-aged, but is too much of a sleaze to care and had given me the job anyway.
“Sure,” I call back, walking over to the far corner of the diner. As my gaze falls on the table, something inside me twists in discomfort. Even in the dimly lit room, I can see that there is something different about this man.
His silvery grey hair and the creases around his eyes tells me he’s somewhere in his late fifties. His strong jaw and well-defined features tells me that he must have been handsome in his younger days, but it’s his eyes that really get to me. They’re dark grey but the pigmentation is so striking, strange in a way that is almost otherworldly and there is a knowledge in them that doesn’t belong in this place, in this world even. In fact, everything about this man feels alien. Like those eyes have seen things, know things that weren’t of this world.
What the hell? Am I being serious right now?
But there’s no denying that this man is totally out of place. He doesn’t belong here anymore than a god, if they exist, belongs on Earth. I can see the way his presence affects the people around him, too—they glance his way before quickly averting their gazes. As if they can sense, just as something inside me can sense, that there is something about this man that stirs the very air around him.
Yeah, sure, because this man is really a being from another world who just wandered into this seedy diner in the backwater town of Brockton of all places. Shaking my head in annoyance, mostly at myself for thinking such stupid thoughts, I stop in front of the man’s table.
“What can I get you …” I trail off when those startling grey eyes meet mine. He knows me. Is my immediate thought.
Stop it. I tell my overreactive imagination, as I struggle to paint on my usual smile. I brace myself for the perverted comments, but they never come. In fact, contrary to the depraved looks I get from the usual clientele, this guy is pointedly not looking at my tits or my ass or any of the usual places that the customers usually ogle. The expression on his face seems almost … sad?
“I’ll have a whisky, no ice.” The man’s voice is gentle, kind. Not something I’m used to.
“Coming right up,” I say, trying to keep my voice light, despite my growing discomfort. I open my mouth to say something else, although I have no idea what. But thinking better of it, I walk away instead, feeling the man’s eyes on me the whole time.
I get through the rest of the shift feeling like I was two seconds from running out of the diner. The man at table six stayed until an hour before closing, watching the whole time. Again, not in that perverted way that I’m used to, but watching all the same, and I’ve never felt more uncomfortable in my entire life. I could feel something like shame prickling down my spine as I batted my lashes and flashed the usual smile to the customers under that watchful gaze.
I’d gotten rid of that shame a long time ago, but for some reason, in the presence of this total stranger, I suddenly wanted to cover up and get the hell out of there.
The shiver of premonition returns. Those eyes see things, know things that I’m sure I never want to find out.
2
As I walk through the derelict neighborhoods that make up Brockton, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. I tell myself to stop being so paranoid—it’s been a strange day, and my nerves are fried, but it’s no excuse to start imagining things. Still, I can’t shake the feeling.
My eyes dart around the decrepit houses, peering into the darkened woods surrounding the low-rise buildings, but I see nothing. There are no lights on in any of the houses, which is not unusual given the time of night, and also the fact that most houses in this part of town sit abandoned. I almost jump out of my skin when a dog barks loudly in the distance somewhere. I reprimand myself and force my breath to calm.
I round the corner and head towards the trailer that is foster home number ten. I feel the usual pang of bitterness whenever I lay eyes on what’s meant to be my home.