The sun beats down on the back of my neck as I pile my hair on top of my head for a mid afternoon shift at Linc's. The door dings happily which somewhat lifts my perpetual gloomy mood. Several regulars smile or kindly wave at me as I make my way behind the counter and I do my best to return them.

Lennette eyes me over her hand pad. "You look lovely today, Sweetpea."

She is just being nice. I look how I have looked the past couple of weeks. Which is drained. But I know that she is tredding water around me because she has been less nosey than usual.

"Thank you." I grab my apron from the hook over her right shoulder and tie it around my waist.

I can feel Levi, Lennette, and even Gary watching me through out my shift. No customers have complained because I have perfected a false cheery attitude down to a T thanks to cheerleading, but I know they can tell my heart is not in it.

Seeing Nate at school has been the definition of torture. I did it to myself, I know, but being alone is harder than I have ever imagined. But being alone without Nate is harder than I can ever explain. I can physically feel the hole in my chest from where his presence had once made home.

What made it worst was that I officially no longer had friends. I had overheard Alyssa talking to a few girls in the locker room about her sexipades with Danny. Turns out they've been secretly hooking for months. Months longer than we've been "officially" broken up.

Funny thing is, I didn't feel blindsided about this information. Maybe I knew all along? Maybe I just never really cared? I can't get myself to be mad or even sad about it. Sure, I am mad at someone I considered my best friend for sneaking behind my back with my boyfriend of the time but I didn't love Danny. I love Nate. And Alyssa and I aren't close anymore.

That would explain why Danny became so apologetic; because guilt was finally catching up to him as well.

Maybe Alyssa secretly hates me all along. Maybe she was using me to get to the top. A true friend wouldn't do that.

Maybe it was all a lie as well.

That is the hardest weight to bare.

Though my old friends and I have let bygones be bygones, I still don't sit with them at lunch or join them at Friday night parties. The whole scene has grown to bore me.

All I want to do now is pop in movies or play strange board games that I once thought were too bazaar for me to even understand. On most nights, I find myself lying in the grass of my back yard and looking up at the sky. With most of the lights off from the neighbors, a few stars dot the blackened sky but it is nothing like how they looked in the back of the pickup truck with Nate.

I don't think anything could beat the way the sky looked that night. It might have been the way the universe swirled and twinkled that made it so memorable but I know it was because of the way those features projected in Nate's eyes. Like he had so many things to show me that only I would get the pleasure of seeing. That's what made everything so magical.

The door dings as I am refilling the coffee pots, the noise jolting me out of my thoughts. When I catch sight of the group that is walking through the door, my stomach instantly drops. Molly, Gavin, and Trent stroll through the maze of chairs and find a table in the corner closest to the bay window.

Their gazes casually flicker over to me before leaning their heads close to each other and pretend like they didn't see me at all.

It's strange to think that I had started to consider them as friends. Molly was a pain in my tush but her fierce loyalty to the ones that she cared for drew me to her. Trent was funny, a little too nerdy for me to understand at times, but friendly enough. And I have grown keen to Gavin's silence. It spoke more than words ever could at times.

"Honey, I'm all filled up for tables," Lennette tell me as she wipes her brow with the back of her hand. "Would you mind?"

My eyes follow her hand as she gentures to Nate's friends table. I sigh inwardly but nod, pursing my lips to distract my facial expressions further, training them to hide what I don't want others to see.

Flinging my braid over my shoulder and adjusting my apron around my hips, I begin to walk over to the table furthest from the back counter. When I approach them, they all wordlessly stare at me with expressionless faces.

"Hey," I say, my voice barely above a whisper. I feel embarrassed and dejected as I speak. "What can I get you to drink?"

I don't miss the way Molly grudgingly leans back in her chair or the way Gavin's beady eyes dart around the table as if asking for guidance from his male friend, whose eyes narrows down at the grey speckled tabletop.

"Just a water for me," Molly answers first, her voice sharp and stern.

"And for you two?" I try not to pull a Nate and stutter but my brain has detached from my skull and I can practically see it roll into the kitchen as I stand here wading from one foot to the other.

"Same," Trent answers and the tall, gangly one nods timidly beside him.

"And can we get some cheeseballs?" Molly interrupts before I have the chance to slink away.

"Of course. I'll get that right in for you." I pretend to scribble their orders down on my note pad but like I said, my brain is not working at the moment. But I think I appear calm and collected. Which is a freaking miracle because I feel anything but.

Just as I am about to scurry away from their table, the door dings again and I know who it is before I even get a look. It's like my body can recognize his without even having to see him. All my hair stands at attention and my skin flushes.

His eyes latch onto mine and I am once again frozen. I can't comprehend why my body does this when I see him still. You would think I would have gotten used to him yet my face still flushes and my blood pumps faster in my veins.

It doesn't take long for Nate to drag his gaze down my body as it had done the very first time after his surgery. I stand inhumanly still, my body heating like a lanced rope of flames on every inch that his eyes touch.

His eyes, like melted caramel, soften when they lift back to mine. I think it's because tears have glazed over my eyes and I can't seem to swallow them down. I start wishing my hair was down so my features could be covered from his friend's sight.

I duck my head and walk back to kitchen without a single word. Lennette watches me as I make my way to the kitchen, out of sight, and I am not surprised when I see the door swing back open to show her with her hand on her hip.

"Child, what has gotten into you?"

I gasp for breath. I think this is what a panic attack feels like.

"N-nothing," I say, holding my hand to my chest. My heart thuds dully as if it's not even there anymore. "I-I'm fine. Just give me a minute."

Lennette isn't having it. Maybe she has finally gotten fed up with my sorrowful, petty, mood and I can't say I blame her. There comes a time when enough is enough.

She takes the dishwasher's chair from the corner of the small closeted space and plops down in it. She peers up at me as she crosses her arms over her ample chest. She doesn't speak, just narrowly watches me until my breathing becomes more shallow and my tears stop.

When I open my eyes after taking a few deep, cleansing breaths, a tissue appears in front of my face. I snatch it without a word and blow my nose. I give a sheepish smile when I'm mostly calm and toss the tissue in the trash.

I sigh loudly and brace myself against the wall. I can't believe that is how I handled seeing Nate after a month of nothing.

It has been a little over month since his birthday.

"You okay?" Lennette asks, her southern twang melting together like the gold in Nate's eyes.

I nod again, not yet trusting my voice.

"You want to talk about it?"

I shake my head this time, squeezing my eyes shut so tightly that another tear slides down my face. I quickly reach up and wipe it away. I can no longer wallow in self pity. With this realization, I stand up straighter and clear my throat.

From this moment forward, I would do just that. Move forward.

"I'm fine, thank you." I swipe under my eyes one more time. "Sorry, I'm not usually a public crier. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"Sometimes a girl just needs a good cry before she takes on the world. It's perfectly normal, Kelly." Lennette rubs my arm in a loving gesture, one that a mother would do to her child when they fall and scrape their knee. "Though I do have to say, I don't like seeing you cry very much."

"I don't like crying very much," I deject, sighing again. "But I'm fine, now."

I reach for the door handle but am stopped by Lennette's hand landing once again on my shoulder. When I look back at her, there is an emotion that makes the water gates beg to burst open again but I push them down. "Do you want me to take his table?"

I didn't have to tell my co-worker what is going on in my love life for her to catch onto my vibe. The woman is smart like that.

"No," I confirm, glancing out the window to see Nate's friends laughing and him glancing back to the room I disappeared into every few seconds or so, no humor on his face. I duck before he can see me. "I really want to say yes but I think I need to take them."

Lennette nods and smiles sadly at me, her dark eyes slightly twinkling under the brisk emotion. She pats my back again before she speaks. "You are the smartest, strongest, most precious little lady I have ever met, Kelly Henderson. You will find a way and whatever way that ends up being, you will be just fine."

I hug her before I head back out to the floor because it's nice to have a friend. She stops me before I make my way out by tugging me back into the small room. Lennette takes out some lip gloss from her back pocket and dabs it across my bottom lip. I manage to laugh for the first time in a while-- or at least it feels like that-- and rub my lips together to blend her handy work.

"Okay, now go." She winks and I laugh again, rolling my eyes before heading back out and telling Gary to make a batch of cheeseballs.

I don't need to ask Nate what he would like to drink because I know he wants a cup of coffee. I know this because he happens to be as hooked on caffeine as me. I pour him a mug and grab the waters before I brace myself to go back to the table.

"Here you go," I say and set down the cheeseballs in the middle of the table.

"Thanks," Nate says, his voice small but he smiles up at me politely and I nearly spill Gavin's water on his lap.

"Um," I correct myself before I can make a bigger fool out of this situation than I already have. "Are you guys ready to order?"

I take their orders as I would any other customer that walked through the doors of the diner but I stop listening to Molly ramble off and change her order a thousands times. I'm sure she is doing it on purpose by the amusing glint in the cat green eyes but I ignore it like I would any other day.

Nate's phone catches my attention on the corner of the table. His earbuds are hanging loosely around his neck, hushed music ringing through them, and for some reason that makes me smile.

"I love that song," I say over Molly's babbling. The table goes quiet and it suddenly dawns on me that I said those words out loud. I clear my throat again and straighten my spine. "His new album is great."

Nate sits motionless as if he is caught off guard that I have spoken to him. Jolting out of his stupor, his eyes land on his lit screen.

"Yeah," he answers, his eyes staring straight into mine. "Me too."

As if in a trance, the rest of the audience disappears and it's just Nate and me. I smile. "I'm actually thinking of getting tickets for when he comes to Charlotte."

Nate's face lights up slightly just like it always does when music is the topic of interest. "No, way. That would be a wicked concert to see."

I almost say something along the lines of we should go see him together, but don't because I don't think I could take anymore rejection. So instead I smile, actually smile, because he is so beautiful and everything about him is warm and light and the dark hole in my chest slowly fills in with the sight of him.

"Could you go put our order in?" Molly's voice rings through the deception of Nate and me being alone together. "We're starving."

I force a closed lip smiling, looking down at Nate one more time before heading to the back counter to place their order.

Lennette grins and winks at me one more time as if for support and it is welcomed because that went better than I imagined it to go.

The way I imagined it was everyone ignoring me when I asked them what they wanted or worst, getting up and leaving to go eat somewhere else.

I dare myself another peak at the corner just in time to see a stern looking Nate talking to the table with them looking berated to say the least. I don't know what he is saying but I can assume he is reaming Molly on her cold behavior towards me. I smile once more at the thought and turn back to the counter at the ding of the bell.

Once their food is placed in front of them I spin back around to refill drinks at another table. It is nice that we are so busy tonight because my mind isn't solely on the boy by the window.

I wasn't surprised that Nate and his friends didn't stick around too long after finishing their meal but I am surprised when Nate is the one to walk up to the register to pay.

"Got stuck with the bill, huh?" I say hoping to keep some cheerfulness in my voice even though most of it is forced.

"Yeah, that happens when you go against everyone's wishes and chose here instead of tacos down the street." His eyes stay latched onto mine and it amazes me that he is able to do so. He has gained some type of confidence boost with his new found sight. Or maybe it is just because it's me. I would like to think it's both.

He chose to come to Lincs knowing that I would probably be working tonight considering it's a friday and I wasn't needed at the football games anymore? I don't know whether to feel excited about this new found information or to be confused.

Nate is more of a mystery to me than ever before.

He hands me the order receipt and we both jump when an electric current zaps us when his thumb skims mine. We both laugh, a shaky, breathy sound that tinges the air with uncertainty.

I try to ignore his eyes on me while I ring up their order and even stumble over the keyboard a few times because I let my nerves get to me. He hands me cash and I allow my fingertips to skim over his as I take it from him off the counter.

It's there again. That life altering current that passes through us like lightning with a simple touch. He doesn't rush away at the feel of my fingers on the back of his hand but keeps his hand stationed under mine before he turns sharply and heads out the door.

I remain in my daze as I watch him walk out and pass the window to where his friends stand watching us. Nate looks over his shoulder at me through the window and I manage to wiggle my fingers in a wave, my arm feeling heavy as I do so, as I watch them walk down the sidewalk and disappear.

It takes me a moment before I realize that Nate handed me more than a twenty dollar bill. Underneath it, folded like a triangle, is a napkin with words printed boldly in blue ink. I open it and read it a few times before the words slowly sink in and a smile stretches across my face.

My backyard. Ten o'clock. Please come. -N