You are sixteen and you think you are in love. It’s the only explanation for why, at 3AM on a Tuesday night halfway through your sophomore year, you have once again allowed yourself to be dragged here, 45 minutes away from your hometown, to stand amid the pink buzz of dying fluorescent lights. But it’s the closest 24-hour diner to your part of Jersey and Jon just needed someone to talk to and you’ve always been a sucker for those stupid blue eyes.
Your hostess’ nametag reads “Pauline,” and as you follow her to a window-side booth, the grease in the diner is palpable. You don’t just smell its heaviness in the air – the floor squelches as you walk, the tables gleam dully, the fryer pops softly from the kitchen. The pink vinyl seat catches against your thigh as you slide in.
The menu’s laminate pages peel apart reluctantly, and the scent of pancake syrup wafts up to you as you open it. You don’t know why you bother; you get the same thing every time, orange juice and a waffle. Jon still hasn’t spoken, and, to be honest, you’d rather not be the one who breaks the silence. Instead, you pick at an obscure, timeworn stain on the chipping Formica tabletop and watch the black-and-chrome clock at the end of the counter tick away time that you could be sleeping. You catch a whiff of burnt coffee, cut with the ambiguous, citrusy scent of industrial cleaning solution.
It’s long after the food arrives that Jon finally looks up from his mug and stills your hand from absentmindedly tapping your fork against your plate. It’s so late that even the graveyard-shift cops that usually wander in for late-night muffins are on their way out, tossing the waitress a five-dollar tip and a playful wink. You ask yourself why you’re here; you sigh and barely keep yourself from rolling your eyes. You are sixteen and you think you are in love.