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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
"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.
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
"You don't want me, you just don't want to see me with anyone else." Author: petuniash Publisher: EasyReading
An extreme admiration, love, or reverence for someone. "She was afraid her attraction towards him was increasing to idolatry." Author: petuniash Publisher: EasyReading
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
"Stop looking me like this. Get away from me, forever." He shouted at me and pushed me down. "Why are you so cruel to hurt me so bad?" I cried. "Cause love will change." Author: petuniash Publisher: EasyReading
Katherine endured mistreatment for three years as Julian's wife, sacrificing everything for love. But when his sister drugged her and sent her to a client's bed, Katherine finally snapped. She left behind divorce papers, walking away from the toxic marriage. Years later, Katherine returned as a radiant star with the world at her feet. When Julian saw her again, he couldn't ignore the uncanny resemblance between her new love and himself. He had been nothing but a stand-in for someone else. Desperate to make sense of the past, Julian pressed Katherine, asking, "Did I mean nothing to you?"
Christina had always believed in taking retribution for the wrongs done to her. To that end, she personally crippled the person who had hurt someone important to her. She was imprisoned for three years, and by the time she was released, her reputation was in tatters. The public despised her for her ruthlessness. They were all shocked, then, to witness the powerful and dignified Harold kiss her with a searing passion. He took it a step further by declaring his love on social media. "I am yours, Christina." She had gone through hell and emerged from the ashes to magnificent new life.
To the public, she was the CEO's executive secretary. Behind closed doors, she was the wife he never officially acknowledged. Jenessa was elated when she learned that she was pregnant. But that joy was replaced with dread as her husband, Ryan, showered his affections on his first love. With a heavy heart, she chose to set him free and leave. When they met again, Ryan's attention was caught by Jenessa's protruding belly. "Whose child are you carrying?!" he demanded. But she only scoffed. "It's none of your business, my dear ex-husband!"
If desire were a blade, their first encounter left him bleeding in silence. He'd built a life on peril and pleasure, armor forged from recklessness, never imagining a woman could make him lower his guard. But even with the truth veiled in lies, he was already in too deep-entangled in the game, and captivated by the player.
Rena got into an entanglement with a big shot when she was drunk one night. She needed Waylen's help while he was drawn to her youthful beauty. As such, what was supposed to be a one-night stand progressed into something serious. All was well until Rena discovered that Waylen's heart belonged to another woman. When his first love returned, he stopped coming home, leaving Rena all alone for many nights. She put up with it until she received a check and farewell note one day. Contrary to how Waylen expected her to react, Rena had a smile on her face as she bid him farewell. "It was fun while it lasted, Waylen. May our paths never cross. Have a nice life." But as fate would have it, their paths crossed again. This time, Rena had another man by her side. Waylen's eyes burned with jealousy. He spat, "How the hell did you move on? I thought you loved only me!" "Keyword, loved!" Rena flipped her hair back and retorted, "There are plenty of fish in the sea, Waylen. Besides, you were the one who asked for a breakup. Now, if you want to date me, you have to wait in line." The next day, Rena received a credit alert of billions and a diamond ring. Waylen appeared again, got down on one knee, and uttered, "May I cut in line, Rena? I still want you."
After two years of marriage, Kristian dropped a bombshell. "She's back. Let's get divorced. Name your price." Freya didn't argue. She just smiled and made her demands. "I want your most expensive supercar." "Okay." "The villa on the outskirts." "Sure." "And half of the billions we made together." Kristian froze. "Come again?" He thought she was ordinary—but Freya was the genius behind their fortune. And now that she'd gone, he'd do anything to win her back.
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