07
s e v e n

It's well past six in the morning when I get home. I lay in bed, reeling over how the fragments in my life seem to detach from one another. What would happen if I take away the fragments that involve Ethan?

But life is like a hot air balloon—air fizzles out once it is pricked, and all you have left is a shell without a single tad of courage.

And Ethan pricked my balloon. Now that I have taken out all of my courage and admitted my feelings to him, I feel hollow like a big blank loophole. The only things left in my life are fragments. But they don't seem to make sense.

My eyes are heavy as my head starts throbbing from dizziness. Just when I'm at the edge of drifting to sleep, I realize that I have to connect the fragments together. And the only way to do it is to know why Ethan is back.

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When I'm back to the diner the next night, I school myself to a perfect mask. I've tried to apply as much concealer as I could to cover up the haunting dark circles under my eyes, but in my peripheral vision, I notice Cassandra constantly glances at me.

"This is your sixteenth yawn in ten minutes." Cassandra stands by the doorway of the kitchen.

I try my best to force open my eyes and I raise my eyebrows as well, hoping that my eyes can be tucked up by them. I stare at Cassandra and try to sound as neutral as I can. "Yeah, didn't sleep well last night."

"Oh well, that's not an excuse, Alyson. You're working in my place. I don't pay for you to stand here and yawn," Cassandra deadpans.

I stifle my urge to roll my eyes. "Just shut up," I mutter under my breath and make sure that she can't hear me. I feel bad for being rude, but maybe because of my lack of sleeping, I really can't deal with people now.

"What did you say?" Cassandra walks toward me.

I don't glance up from the towels I'm folding. "Nothing."

She doesn't speak, but then I feel her slowly sidling up beside me. I sidestep a bit to avoid any contact with her.

The bell jingles and we look up to the entrance door in unison.

A group of high school girls enter, chatting and laughing while walking toward a table. I let out a humph and drop a towel onto the table with a small force. Of course it's not him.

"Alyson," Cassandra begins. "You know, I've warned you before."

"The whole love causes problems and move on thing? Yeah whatever, I suck at this."

I feel a grab on my elbow. Before I'm able to understand what's going on, I'm dragged into the kitchen.

Cassandra shuts the door behind us and pulls me to the sink. "Do the dishes."

I gawk at her, her sudden request making me momentarily confused. "What?"

She stares at me as if I just said something utterly dumb. "I said, do the dishes. Splash yourself with water if you can as well, I don't think your brain is functioning well today."

Slowly, I start rinsing the plates with water. Some water droplets really splash out and hit my face, I grimace as I wipe them away with my backhand.

"Lack of sleep, huh. You peeked at the door every thirty seconds, and it's almost seven now, the guy still hasn't shown up," Cassandra says.

I shut my eyes and don't speak. Moments later, I focus on the dishes again.

"So are you going to talk about it?" she sighs and asks.

My heart starts beating erratically as I close the water tap. I clench my fist to prevent my fingers from trembling. I'm not scared, I'm furious. "Why should I?"

I hear another sigh from Cassandra. "You're leaving very soon, Alyson."

"I know! But what could I do?" I blurt out in exasperation. I've never acted like this in front of Cassandra, and I can see a hint of surprise in her eyes.

She raises her eyebrows. "Well, I did say that love causes problems, but I didn't say that there aren't any solutions."

I swallow hard and raise my gaze to meet hers. Her eyes are always cold, but there was a certain determination in them that I've never seen before.

"Solutions?" My voice contains a sliver of hesitance.

Cassandra nods. "Love can't solve problems, but there are things that can solve them."

"What are those things then?"

She shifts closer to me and watches me for a while. "Forgiveness."

Forgiveness? I almost say that out loud, but I choose to mull over the word in my mind.

"Love will never just go away, it only endures. And you can never forget a person, but you can forgive," she continues.

Cassandra's words make sense. Have I forgiven Ethan? Why am I still thinking about him all the time? I haven't forgotten about what he had done to me, and maybe I haven't forgiven him as well.

"And if you are to forgive, you have to be brave," Cassandra finishes off and stares at me.

"But—" I swallow "—but I have been brave." I think of how I stopped him on the day we met again for the first time after two years, how I told him that I missed him, how I asked him if we could fix things in the park, how I told him that I had enough of his mixed signals.

"Maybe you're almost there." She turns and walks away. A minute later, she returns with a cup of water in hand.

I take the cup and sit onto a table next to me. Maybe I'm really almost there. And I have to be brave.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and open them again.

"His name is Ethan Richardson," I start.

Cassandra tucks a corner of her lips up. She stares at me, indicating me to continue.

Taking another deep breath, I go on. "We met in high school. He was not those popular bad boys, but he was hot, he still is, to be honest. But he was just so different, and he thought I was different too. So he asked me out. That was the best day of my life." I start quirking my lips to a brief smile.

"Teen love, how cute." Cassandra smirks.

I glare at her in a rather amusing way. "Oh yes, we dated for nine months, and everyone told us that we looked good together. I was so happy, you know? I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. But here's the thing, his dad didn't think I could be the one for his son."

"Why?"

I sigh. "I had a guy best friend, his name was Damien, and we grew up together." My voice starts trembling as I start recalling. "And somehow there were some rumors about us being together—"

"And his dad believed it?" Cassandra asks.

I pause before continuing hesitantly, "Yes, and Ethan believed that too."

"Well shit." A scornful laugh escapes from Cassandra, but I know that it is targetted to Ethan, not me. "Do you know his dad well?"

"Sort of, I went over to Ethan's house a couple of times. He always talked about his parents in pairs—he called them 'Rodger and Amy' all the time."

Cassandra tilts her head and her face turns serious. She doesn't say anything, and so I continue, "So yeah, we... we broke up. Ethan didn't believe in those rumors at first, but he eventually did."

"Do you realize you've just blurted everything out to me?" Cassandra asks after I've finished.

I nod, because I really did. I still don't know if I have forgiven Ethan yet, but I realize that I don't hate him. I have never hated him. Telling my story to Cassandra is still hard, but I managed to do that.

"But I still need a reason to forgive him," I say in determination.

Cassandra smiles and starts walking to the kitchen door. Before she opens the door, she turns around. "What's Ethan's surname again?"

I shoot my eyebrows up. Not knowing exactly why she asked that, I answer, "Richardson."

She nods slowly and opens the door, returning to the hustle and bustle of her diner.