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"You said you leave when there's nothing left for you to do so what if I gave you a reason to stay?" Author: petuniash Publisher: EasyReading
I sat in a small, local diner. For a weekday, it was busier than I was used to seeing. It was a small town so I figured everyone here was familiar with one other. A tight knit community that reminded me of Stars Hollow.
I glanced around, sipping on my chocolate milkshake. I looked at the people surrounding me.
I found it interesting to take note of the people around me, to wonder who they were and make up stories about their lives. My life was one big and meaningless disappointment. It made it much more appealing to pay more attention to others, rather than focus on myself.
A mother sat with her son, he looked to be around the age of nine or ten. She was smiling down at her son, pure adoration in her eyes. The boy was a mess, frankly. He had ketchup on the corners of his mouth. His burger fell apart in his hands, his chocolate shake dripping down onto his white t-shirt. Still, his mother smiled and helped him hold onto the burger. She hardly paid note to the mess the boy was making.
A group of teenagers sat near the back in a booth. Two of them, a brown haired boy and blonde girl sat awfully close, laughing and making fluttery eyes at one other. They were in a relationship, love-sick and very comfortable with PDA. Across from them sat two boys wearing tee's with school logos on them. They all were laughing dreadfully loudly and pushing each other around.
What a happy bundle.
At one table, a boy who also looked like he was in high school sat alone. His head was stuck in a book while a half eaten sandwich sat in front of him. He looked very focused on his book that must've been very interesting. I guess books could be though. Fictional characters were usually better than real people. He looked the complete opposite to the other group of teenagers.
There was also an elderly couple sitting together with their hands intertwined. Wow, who would think relationships last that long? They seemed happy, smiling and laughing weakly.
"Can I get you anything else, dear?"
I looked up. I sat at the counter. The man behind the counter was quite old, maybe sixty. His head was slightly balding and he wore glasses low on his nose. He offered me a kind smile, looking at me with his grey eyebrows raised.
I adjusted on the stool I sat on and shook my head, smiling out of politeness. "No, thank you, sir."
I brought my attention to my chocolate milkshake.
It was very sweet.
The pathetic situation I was sitting in right now, the very one where I sat in this diner and observed people until I had nothing left to think about but my chocolate milkshake - that almost made me want to laugh. How pointless does life have to get for one to spend the night staring at their milkshake?
To leave this planet was a thought that occurred to me often. It was a very tempting thought - a thought I was surprised I hadn't gone through will thus far.
My life didn't offer me anything that made me want to stay here.
The only reason I remained breathing on this wandering star we call Earth was simply because I was convinced there was a reason I must still be here.
Maybe I was desperate to find a meaning behind my utterly lurid existence.
But really, with no family nor friends, no home to go to, a circadian routine that consisted of visually examining a milkshake- with essentially no reason to wake up in the morning, why was I still here? I hardly had any willingness to continue breathing. I was merely just subsisting, floating through life with hardly a thought in my head. Somehow I figure, that if there is a God or any higher power up there, he must be keeping me on my feet for some bizarre reason. Maybe that's wishful thinking but if there is a reason, one day I'll find out what it is.
"Dean, you haven't stopped by in a while, son. Where have you been?" The old man behind the counter, who I was sure was the owner of this diner, was now talking to a man who had just come in. He was standing a few feet away from me. I couldn't see him because of the hood that remained over my head.
"Just busy, Ben. You know the crazy schedules." The guy beside me had a deep and masculine voice. He let out a short chuckle that sounded almost forced.
This man named Dean pulled out a stool that was one away from mine and sat down.
"Would you like your usual?" Ben, the old man asked him with a neighbourly smile. Made sense - small town life made one local familiar with another.
I never had a sense of familiarity and neighbourliness like that in my life. The thought of it made me want to laugh- I could not imagine making small talk with the barista I got coffee from every morning.
"Ah, just a mug of Anne's hot cocoa tonight. Thanks." This time, Dean's voice sounded less tense.??
"Right up, son." Ben walked off, going behind into the kitchen.
I continued sipping on my milkshake slowly, letting my tastebuds devour each bit of the chocolaty goodness. It felt nice to take a minute to appreciate the sweetness of what I was consuming as sometimes days would go by without me eating a single proper meal.
The countertop was white granite. I could appreciate how modernized this diner was. If it were retro, I would have already left with a headache.
From the way I stared at the granite counter, my gaze could have burned holes through the surface. As if this countertop were the most intriguing thing to exist.
It really wasn't.
"Here you go, son. Let me know if you need anything else." Ben slid a mug of hot cocoa toward dean. He was about to walk away when he glanced at me again.
"Doing alright? Get you anything else?"
I brought my head up and looked at the man. I forced a tight smile. "I'm alright, sir. Thank you."
Ben returned a smile before walking off.
"Quiet-but polite."
Dean's voice was inviting, amused.
I looked over, unsure if he were talking to me or someone else. He was young, maybe a year or two older than me. His brown hair was swept upwards, towards the side. His eyes were strikingly blue, slightly grey. Gunmetal. They looked like the ocean. His ear was pierced.
A bemused little smirk laid on his face as he peered at me.
I raised an eyebrow, my face straight. "Would you be talking to me?"?
He glanced from side to side before his eyes settled on me once again. "Is there anyone else in the proximity?"
I pulled my hood off my head. I couldn't help narrowing my eyes. "Then clearly I look more inviting than I thought because I didn't know I was talking to you."?
He didn't seem offended by my bluntness. In fact, he looked more beguile "Polite one moment, snippy the next. How does that work?"
"Does it work? Doing a psychoanalysis on strangers? If anything, it's a little creepy." Why was he talking to me? I just wanted to finish my milkshake in silence.
He let out a quiet laugh, shaking his head lightly. "Well, aren't you charming?"
I looked at him for a moment longer. Then, I pulled my hood back over my head and resumed staring at my milkshake. I sipped the last of it before pulling some bills out of my pocket and dropping them on the counter.
I stood, ready to leave when Dean spoke again. "Are you only polite to elderlies, then?"
Oh, I've seen guys like him before.
They think they're oh-so charming, that anyone will swoon over their mediocre attempts to be flirty. God, I much rather bash my head into the granite counter.
I didn't have time for this.
Or the better way to put it, I didn't have the?energy?for this.
I turned to look at him, eyes narrowed. "Cancel my subscription. You're voice is giving me a migraine."
Then, I left.
Fia Romero meets her boyfriends dorm mate, player Wes Hamilton. While Fia has been in a happy and committed three year long relationship, Wes doesn't believe in the idea of committing to someone while you should be exploring your options and having fun. Their friendship grows over what started as a silly idea for Fia to play Wes's match-maker and find him the perfect girl that he thinks is worth the commitment. What started as match-making turned into a fake dating relationship, leading to confused feelings and room-fulls of tension and passion. A little game of playing Cupid turns into something more and maybe the person who has always been the one for you was standing right under your nose the whole time. Author: petuniash Publisher: EasyReading
Rosie, an introvert whose presence feels like serenity to Anthony. Two people with completely different natures, from two different worlds find themselves consumed by one other. Rosie finally feels seen, Anthony finally realizes what magic feels like. While they keep being pulled towards each other like magnets, they are kept apart by their own doubts and hesitations. Author: petuniash Publisher: EasyReading
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Annie Halden was the exact definition of a wallflower. She lived on the sidelines, didn't like attention and worried too much. She wrote letters to herself as her way to get her thoughts out. She never told anyone or let anyone see. Leo Smith, one of the school star athletes and most popular boys, found one of her letters. He started breaking into her locker to read the letters every time there was a new one. He grew concerned about her and wanted to protect her, he wanted to know why she was so broken and who hurt her, he wanted her to know he was there for her - be her shoulder to lean on. How would this friendship work out with Annie being as shy and quiet as she is, never getting close to anyone? How would this friendship last if Annie came to find out the truth about Leo stealing and reading her personal letters? Author: petuniash Publisher: EasyReading
Like a petal thats fallen from a dying flower, I fell for you knowing it wouldn't work out anyways. Jasmine somehow gets stuck having to become Zac Miller, the school bad-boy/golden-boy's Chemistry tutor. It didn't take long for things to get messy when Jasmine's boyfriend needs to send Zac a message to stay away from his girlfriend. A blooming attraction between bad guy Zac and the innocently sweet Jasmine, secrets from the past and a very jealous boyfriend - nothing about being Zac Miller's tutor was going to be easy for Jasmine. Author: petuniash Publisher: EasyReading
Allison fell in love with Ethan Iversen, the soon-to-be Alpha of the Moonlight Crown pack. She always wanted him to notice her. Meanwhile, Ethan was an arrogant Alpha who thought a weak Omega could not be his companion. Ethan's cousin, Ryan Iversen, who came back from abroad and was the actual heir of the pack, never tried to get the position nor did he show any interest in it. He was a popular playboy Alpha but when he came back to the pack, one thing captured his eyes and that was Allison.
Madison had always believed that she would marry Colten. She spent her youth admiring him from afar, dreaming of their future life together. But Colten was always indifferent to her, and when he abandoned her at a time when she needed him most, she finally realized that he never loved her. With renewed resolve and a thirst for revenge, Madison left. Endless possibilities lay ahead, but Colten was no longer part of her plans. Colten rushed to her place in a panic. "Madison, please come back to me. I’ll give you everything!" It was his powerful uncle who answered the door. "She's my woman now."
After two years of marriage, Sadie was finally pregnant. Filled with hope and joy, she was blindsided when Noah asked for a divorce. During a failed attempt on her life, Sadie found herself lying in a pool of blood, desperately calling Noah to ask him to save her and the baby. But her calls went unanswered. Shattered by his betrayal, she left the country. Time passed, and Sadie was about to be wed for a second time. Noah appeared in a frenzy and fell to his knees. "How dare you marry someone else after bearing my child?"
Iris grew from an orphaned child to the adopted daughter of the Stewart family at age ten, finding warmth in her nominal uncle Vincent's kindness. Seven years later, she became his secret lover. When Vincent's engagement was announced, gossip spread about the notorious playboy CEO finally settling down. But only Iris knew the extent of his cold, two-faced nature. Iris fell for Vincent and, through tears, begged, "Marry me," only to be met with his frosty refusal. Defeated, she accepted a lawyer's proposal, sparking public excitement. Then, on her wedding day, Vincent pleaded desperately, "Don't marry him…"
After my family's sinister plots collapsed, they lashed out at me, taking their rage to a violent level. Cornered and desperate, I married Jaxton—the town's most sought-after bachelor—due to an unplanned pregnancy. Love had no part in this marriage; I assumed he married me purely out of responsibility, his heart belonging elsewhere. The moment I chose to let him go and turned to leave, he grabbed me and pinned me down hard. "Jaxton, you promised you'd never touch me!" I snapped, glaring fiercely. His eyes flashed arrogantly as he leaned closer. "You're the one who started this!"
"Love is blind!" Lucinda abandoned her beautiful and comfortable life because of a man. She married him and slaved off for him for three long years. One day, the scales finally fell off her eyes. She realized that all her efforts were in vain. Her husband, Nathaniel still treated her like shit. All he cared about was his lover. "Enough is enough! I quit wasting my years with an ungrateful man!" Lucinda's heart was shattered into many pieces, but she summoned up the courage to ask for a divorce. The news caused a stir online! A filthy rich young woman recently got divorced? She was a good catch! Countless CEOs and handsome young men immediately swarmed to her like bees to honey! Nathaniel couldn't take it anymore. He held a press conference and begged with teary eyes, "I love you, Lucinda. I can't live without you. Please come back to me." Would Lucinda give him a second chance? Read to find out!