one

If there’s anything I love, it’s a challenge. Sitting 15 feet away from my table is a girl, curled up in a corner booth, reading a book balanced artfully between her torso and legs that she had lifted to be wedged between her torso and the table. Strands of the girl’s cinnamon colored hair falls past her shoulders, and some of it is tangled in the fingers of her small hands, clear blue eyes raked over words in the book and she looks so focused. On the table in front of her is a single ceramic mug, sitting on top of a paper napkin. “Good book?” I call over to her. I knew that I probably shouldn’t attract attention to myself, after all, I already had a girlfriend, a hot girlfriend at that. But I definitely couldn’t just let the guys think I was going to pass up on a chance to prove I’m a stud. I can get what I want when I want, as easily as I want. I run the show. “What’s it about?” another voice calls to the girl from my table. Tyler. Of course, he always followed my lead. The girl ignores us and turns a page in her book. “Come here often?” I call out. The girl grabs her mug and takes a sip out of it, not missing a beat as she flips another page. “Are you reading Moby Dick?” Tyler chimes snickering then grabbing a cherry turnover out of it’s wax paper bag and chewing off a huge bite.Cherry filling gets on the side of his mouth looking like pink lipgloss.”Or are you reading a little Fifty Shades? Maybe you can teach me a little of what you learn.” Tyler chirps his mouth still full and giving me a hell of a view of what was inside. The girl picks up her mug and finishes off it’s contents. At first glance you would think she was fine but a second glance would probably make you notice her hand is trembling and her brows are furrowed...she was pissed off. “Tyler” I say quietly “Shut the f**k up...we don’t need her coming over here.” I grab a napkin from the holder off the diner counter and hand it to him. What I said was partly true, but in reality I just wanted him to stop stealing the lines that were supposed to be mine. “Dude, lighten up... unlike you, I don’t have a girlfriend and I don’t plan on getting one, so it’s fine.” Tyler shrugs licking his lips before he wipes them with the napkin. “If you want to be smart don’t waste your time reading books with sex tutorials, learn from a teacher!” Tyler calls over again, taking a sip from his coke. Cinnamon hair girl snaps her book shut, sliding her legs under the table and then grabbed from beside her off the booth seat a large purse, which she places the book in. She slides out of the orange tinged booth and for the first time I see her body in full. She’s petite, about 5 feet something but her legs are long and her curves flow evenly. Her skin is tanned a light bronze from the summer sun. Her hair falls in soft waves to the small of her back and as she pulls it into a ponytail,I notice how the sun shining on it makes it the color of honey. "I’m out Randy!” The girl calls over the diner’s counter, dropping coins into a tip jar. An elderly man walks out from the kitchen to behind the counter. “It was a pleasure to see you again Raelynn.” Then he says more quietly, barely audible between the clank and clatter of the usual Saturday morning diner noise; “Tell your momma I said hello and I send my condolences to all of your family.” Raelynn. The girl’s name sounds familiar but it wasn’t a name I heard on a regular basis. She nods her head slowly and keeps her head down as she walks to the door, but not fast enough before Tyler calls out his last obscenity. “Are you gonna be a b***h like that? A tease? Think you're better than me? Too good for me?” Whoa...not what I expected. Now Tyler has really taken everything too far. Even I know you never ever call a girl a b***h out loud. The girl stops, her hand poised on the push bar of the door. She whirls around, her face angry and words spitting out of her mouth with more fury than Eminem as she takes small accusing steps towards the table. “How about you and your friends shut up. I was enjoying my book before you came waltzing in here thinking that you're some sort of hot shot badass when I’m sure your dick is smaller than a cocktail weenie. If you had any sense you would know that the way to get in a girl’s pants is certainly not by making rude remarks, my pants especially. Too bad I’d never let you in them in a million years even if you were nice. You look like you get enough action from cherry turnovers.” By now Raelynn has taken enough small steps that she stands almost nose to well, chest, with Tyler who is no longer smirking, but standing wide eyed, like a guilty six foot six three year old. “So hop off your high horse, and f*****g treat a lady with respect otherwise you won’t ever have a lady.” Raelynn finishes her spiel and reaches up and pats Tyler on the cheek, further enforcing the whole six foot six baby look. With that the girl known by the name of Raelynn whirls out the door and stomps away. I stare blankly at the door she left out of as if waiting for her to return for a full five seconds before turning to Tyler. "I'm getting sick of your s**t bro, like seriously. You took that s**t too far I have no idea why you thought on any level what you did was okay.” I glare, my eyes boring holes into his. I notice him flinch subtly. “The real question is; why do you even care. You would have said something much similar. So what? I called her b***h, a female dog. It’s nothing really for you to get butthurt over.” Tyler belches loudly and I silently sigh in my head. This kid is a hopeless case. “Look kid” I snap, and my voice comes out much louder than I expected, making the other two guys at our table jump and raise their brows. I near never raise my voice, I learned at a young age that yelling gets you nowhere but in a broken home with a broken family. “This isn’t just about what you said this is about you overstepping your boundaries. Watch. Your. Step.” I was growling now, my voice low and guttural, proving I mean business. I then toss a twenty onto the counter, grab my backpack, and go after that girl, I just couldn’t help myself.

Raelynn

The audacity the boys in this town have kills me. Literally kills me. My momma told me when I was a little girl not to let anyone ever treat me like I’m less than a zero. Without women in the world men would be helpless invalids. Before my dad passed away at war in Iraq, I would’ve thought my momma was right. For three years straight I would wake up at the same time each night, listening to her cry into a pillow, her muffled sobs like arrows aimed directly at my ten year old heart. I wonder if she knew that the paper thin walls couldn't mask her sadness, that even though she called me down for breakfast with a smile on her face each morning, I could see through the plasticity of it, through the makeup packed on trying to hide the bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. That I was hurting just as much as she was. These questions never got answers, and now, seven years later, our lives have only slightly altered after hundreds of psychiatric appointments and doctor’s prescriptions.I watch her pour her sorrows down her throat with glasses of scotch and prescribed painkillers.