What makes you happy?
Those were the words he said to me the day I met him. He asked me a simple question, one I should have been able to answer easily. There were plenty of answers, after all.
My books made me happy, and my dog, Kalo, made me happy, too. Yoga made me happy. The way the sun always manages to come back, no matter how dark the storm, made me happy. I was the happiest girl in the world.
Or so I thought.
That day had started just like any other. I woke up with the sun, dragging my yoga mat out of my closet with a yawn to start my Friday. I fed Kalo and took her for a walk, ate breakfast alone, and checked to see if my parents were still alive. Referring to them as my “parents” is kind of a stretch, though, because that would imply they did some kind of parenting. In reality, I’d been taking care of myself since I was old enough to pour my own cereal. I was still amazed I’d managed to make it to see my twentieth birthday.
Daryl, my father, had made it to work by some miracle that Friday morning and was already gone by the time I was packing up my backpack to head to work. Cindy, my mother, was doped up but breathing, which was a win in my book. She was sprawled out on the old, dingy, sunken-in couch in the living room of our trailer, and I didn’t say a word to wake her before I pushed through the creaky metal door and out into the fresh Alabama air.
Well, it would have been fresh, if we didn’t live in the Longleaf Pine trailer park.
Still, I had a smile on my face as the morning dew settled on my skin. With one last wave at Kalo, who was looking at me through the hole in my bedroom blinds, I hopped on my bike and started the short ten-minute bike ride to Papa Wyatt’s Diner, the restaurant I’d called home ever since I could remember, and my place of employment since I was sixteen.
“I hate Alabama,” Tammy said as soon as I pushed my bike through the front door to a chime from the small bell above. Orange and black streamers hung from the door frame, each of them sticking to my forehead a bit as I passed by. Sweat was snaking its way from my damp hair down the back of my collared uniform shirt, finding a rather uncomfortable home where the sun doesn’t shine, but it didn’t matter.
Alabama was hot, but Papa Wyatt’s Diner was exactly the same as it was every day. I found comfort in that, in the fact that I was able to work there at all, to get out of my house and do what I needed to do to make ends meet. I had plans to get out of Mobile, and I was so close to making it happen I could taste it.
“No, not you!” I joked with a feigned shock face as Tammy helped me situate my bike in the back storage closet. “I just can’t imagine you hating anything, Tammy.”
She glared at me, hands hanging on her hips. “It’s Halloween and it still feels like the inside of a sweaty jock strap out there. Fall doesn’t exist in this town.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that,” I said, a longing sigh on my lips. “I’d kill for some sweater weather right now.” I pulled my long blonde hair into a quick braid and let it hang over my left shoulder, retrieving the orange hair tie from my pocket to add a little holiday spirit. My thick, black-framed glasses had slid down my nose in the Alabama heat, and I used one finger to push them back into place.
I craved a true fall season, too, and I knew I’d find it in Seattle. It used to be if I made it, but now I knew it was when. I’d been saving for years, even after having to help my parents with the bills. I could have already been out of that town if I would have told them to shove off when they asked for rent or grocery money, but the truth was that I needed a place to live, too — and food to eat.
Lily, my best friend, used to let me stay at her house all the time. Her mom didn’t even bat an eye if I was there when Lily wasn’t, because they knew my home situation. But Lily went to college right after we graduated, just like everyone else, and I stayed back, attending our local community college and saving for my dream school.
If it weren’t for Tammy letting me crash on her couch on the nights when my parents’ fighting got really intense, I probably wouldn’t have had enough sanity left to joke with her every morning.
“Yeah, well, at least you’ll get it soon. At Bastyr.” Tammy smiled, punching her log-in into the register as I prepped the coffee machines. “But for now, you get summer in October.” She glanced over my shoulder at the front door. “And weirdos who still want hot coffee, anyway.”
I didn’t even need to turn to know Mr. Korbe was standing on the other side of the glass, hands resting easily in the pockets of his worn, brown dress slacks and what little hair he had left swept over his freckled head. I threw him a wink and a wave before smiling back at Tammy.
“Just a few more months.” The words came out airy and light, riding on a fantasy I’d had since I was twelve. My dream school was three thousand miles away on the Pacific Northwest coast, and after years of saving, I was almost to the point where I could make the move.
Almost.
“Did you get your acceptance letter yet?”
I swallowed, dusting off the front of my apron before heading for the door. “Not yet. But it’ll come.” I paused when I’d almost reached the lock, eying Tammy who was bouncing a little now, biting back a smile. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Something big is going to happen today. I feel it.” Tammy was older than me by thirty-two years, the dark bun at the nape of her neck peppered with hints of gray. Her eyes creased with laugh lines as her smile widened.
“Uh-oh, did you read your tarot cards again this morning?”
“Nope, but you know my gut feelings. My intuition is never wrong.”
I laughed, because as much as I wanted to argue with her, it was true — she always had a feeling when something was coming, good or bad. I’d believed in her psychic abilities ever since I was a thirteen-year-old dirty kid with my feet hanging from the barstools in front of the cash register. She used to buy me a grilled cheese and a slice of pie out of her own pocket, and when I turned sixteen, she got me a job so I wouldn’t have to go hungry ever again.
“Well, then, maybe my letter will come today.”
“There’s my optimistic girl.” She whistled, hollering into the back kitchen. “Door’s opening!”
“Strippers locked away!” our cook, Ray, yelled back.
Tammy rolled her eyes and I chuckled, unlocking the door to welcome Mr. Korbe inside.
And so the morning went. I refilled coffee and served up plates of scrambled eggs and pancakes to the same faces I’d seen day in and day out for years. I took a picture with little Sammy Jones, who was dressed up as an “Army guy GI Joe,” in his own words, and listened to Mr. and Mrs. Boone tell me about the new vegetables in their garden. I helped Tammy top off the ketchup and mustard when breakfast faded into lunch, and tried not to cringe when the old man known affectionally as Scooter checked out my ass as I passed his booth — it was hard to do, since I’d sat on his lap when he played Santa every year until I was ten.
Yep, it was a completely normal day.
Until it wasn’t.
I heard the faint chime of the bell as I cashed out the Boones. “Welcome to Papa Wyatt’s, just grab any open booth and I’ll be right with you,” I called without even looking up from the register. One finger pushed my glasses back up my nose as I popped the register closed and hurried back with the change, offering the Boones one last smile and letting them know I’d see them on Sunday. Which I would.
I always did.
My eyes were on my hands as I pulled the notepad from my apron pocket and the pencil from behind my ear, feet moving on autopilot to the newly occupied booth, but when I looked up at the person sitting in it, everything stopped.
Everything.
Time, my heart, the greeting that was two seconds from leaving my lips.
We had plenty of travelers stop in the diner on their way through town — hard to escape that when we were less than two minutes from I-10 — but those travelers usually fit a code. They were the spring break road trippers on their way to the beach, or lonely truck drivers with sad, weary eyes, or a family of four with kids bouncing in their seats and throwing apple sauce while the parents begged me for more coffee. None of them, and I do mean none of them, looked like him.
His sandy-blond hair was tussled, one hand absent-mindedly running through it as he looked over the menu. From the view I had of his profile, I noticed the deep dent of his cheeks, the smooth squareness of his jaw, the long slope of his nose, bent just a little at the top, like it’d been broken before. He was dressed like the men on the magazines lining the grocery store checkout lane, sporting a cerulean blue sweater over a button-up, plaid dress shirt, the sleeves of both shoved up to his elbows. My eyes followed the fabric down to where it gathered above the light brown belt around his hips. When he dropped the menu to the table, I snapped my attention back to his face.
Which was now angled straight up at me.
His eyes were deep honey pools, bright and intense where they lay sheltered by thick, dark eyebrows. And there were two, small, perfectly symmetrical lines creased between those eyebrows as he looked up at me, like he’d asked a question I hadn’t heard, like he’d been asking questions his entire life without finding a single answer.
In a whoosh, reality sucked me back into the restaurant and I blinked in rapid fire, clearing my throat as I flipped to a new page in my notepad. “Can I start you off with a drink? Coffee, tea?”
I tried to keep my eyes on the notepad, waiting for his response, but he was still staring at me. I lifted my gaze to his, tracing those two creases right above his nose. He wasn’t necessarily scowling, but he certainly wasn’t smiling.
“Sir?”
He blinked, but his eyes never left mine. “Coffee. Black.”
His voice was low and modulated, like a smooth pour of the drink he’d just ordered.
I nodded, rolling my lips together. “I’ll give you a minute to look over the menu.”
When I was back behind the counter bar, I refilled the two customers there before pouring a steaming cup for Mr. GQ, massaging my thigh as I did. It was more out of habit than pain, but Tammy eyed me with concern from where she was piling plates on her arm in the kitchen window.
“You okay, Coop?”
I was still in a fog, and I stopped pouring the coffee just before it tumbled over the lip of the small, white, porcelain mug. “Huh?”
Tammy nodded to my leg, and I looked down at my hand still massaging the muscle. It looked normal, under the corduroy black fabric of my work pants, but beneath it was the scar of my loss, the muscle weak and small in comparison to my other leg. Phantom pains still made themselves present from time to time, reminding me of what once was there — before the accident, before life as I knew and understood it had been altered beyond recognition.
“Oh.” I stopped, smoothing the same hand over my apron before carefully balancing the saucer and cup, already heading back to the booth. “I’m fine. Phantom pains, I barely even notice them anymore.”
She forced a smile. “Okay. By the way, what’s the story on that tall glass of water in booth nine?”
I shrugged, pretending like I hadn’t noticed how attractive he was, the blush crawling up my neck betraying me. “Dunno. He likes his coffee black, that’s about as far as our conversation has gone.”
“You should ask him where he’s from.”
“And you should deliver those pancakes.”
She grinned. “You think he’s cute.”
“I think he’s hungry.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Shut up.”
She laughed as I slid past her and back onto the floor, hands shaking slightly as I checked in on my other booths before placing the full cup of coffee in front of my new customer. He wasn’t looking at the menu anymore. He was simply staring out the large windows of the diner, eyes distant, brows still slightly pinched.
“Ready to order?” I asked, pulling out my notepad again. I didn’t even need it. I hadn’t written down an order in more than two years. But I needed something to look at, something other than him.
“What makes you happy?”
He was still staring out the windows, but when a few seconds passed without an answer from me, he turned his gaze to mine.
And I couldn’t speak.
My books, my dog, yoga, the way the sun always manages to come back, no matter how dark the storm.
He didn’t raise his brows or ask again, didn’t tap his foot or wave his hand in front of my face. He just looked back at me, almost with understanding, as if he knew the question wasn’t easy to answer. Maybe he didn’t believe it had an answer at all.
But it did. I had answers — I had plenty. I was Miss Optimistic. I counted my blessings daily. I always looked at the bright side of my life, ignoring the shadows of it, choosing to focus my energy on whatever positives I could grasp.
Still, none of that mattered.
He asked me what made me happy, but that’s not what he really asked.
What he really asked was — are you happy?
And I couldn’t speak.
“I’ll have the steak and eggs, please,” he said after a moment, turning back to the window and reaching down for his coffee. He took a sip with me still staring at him until I finally tore my eyes away, pretending to write in my notepad.
“Coming right up.”
I zipped back through the diner and into the kitchen, ignoring Mr. Hollenbeck as he raised his hand at me indicating he was ready to order, too. I couldn’t take his order, not yet, not until I took a breath.
Ray quirked a brow at me when I blew through the swinging door, spreading my hands flat on the silver metal table next to the sink, eyes closed and head down as I forced an exhale.
“You okay, slick?”
“Steak and eggs, please.”
I opened my eyes again, standing straight, and Ray saluted me with his spatula. “You got it.”
This is stupid, I scolded myself. It was like I’d never talked to a boy before, or seen one for that matter. It was no secret that I wasn’t exactly the most social girl when I was in school, especially after I lost my leg, but I had a few friends. I had conversations with boys — group projects, book clubs, customers. So why was I stunned speechless by this particular one?
Annoyed, I blew out a breath, rebraiding my hair over my shoulder before pushing back through the door. I immediately made my way to Mr. Hollenbeck, smiling and nodding as I took his order, all the while way too aware of booth number nine.
“So, where’s he from?” Tammy asked when I rejoined her behind the counter.
“I didn’t ask.”
“You should.”
I scribbled out the check for the trucker at the end of the bar, offering him a smile and telling him no rush as I slipped it over the counter to him. Turning back to Tammy, I leaned a hip against the bar.
“He asked me what made me happy.”
She frowned. “What? That’s weird.”
“I know.”
“What did you say?”
“That’s the weirder part,” I confessed. “I didn’t have an answer. I just stared at him.”
“Plenty of things make you happy,” Tammy said, clearly as concerned as I was about my lack of response. “You’re literally the happiest girl I know.”
“I know. I can’t explain it. He’s… his presence is paralyzing.”
Tammy eyed him over my shoulder just as Ray tapped the bell.
“Order up!”
I grabbed the plate of steak and eggs before Tammy could say anything else, making my way back to his booth.
“Here you go,” I said, setting the plate in front of him. “Can I get you anything else right now?”
He looked up at me, and the faintest hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips. “No, this is great. Thank you.”
I nodded. But I didn’t move.
Go back to the bar, Cooper.
“So, where ya traveling from?”
He cut a corner off his steak, pausing to look up at me with it mounted on his fork. “Florida.”
He popped the bite into his mouth.
“Ah,” I said, as if it made sense or something. Nothing about him made sense. “Business or pleasure?”
He humphed the way one would when recalling an inside joke. “Neither.”
I watched as he dug into his egg, spilling the yolk onto his plate. The man wanted to eat in peace, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t move.
“Well, where are you heading?”
“Washington,” he answered easily.
My stomach did a flip, tugging on the part of my heart tied so reverently to the dreams I’d had all my life. Washington. It was where I wanted to be, where I knew my life would really begin.
Up until that point, he’d only made me uncomfortable — in a curious, fascinating way.
Now, he’d made me jealous.
“Well, that’s a long drive. Better eat up and get some energy.” I forced a smile. “Let me know if you need anything.”
My mind raced as I allowed my body to fall back into the motions, checking on customers and delivering orders, cashing out and calling out greetings and farewells as people came and went. It was the first time in my life that it bothered me — the fact that they were coming and going, and I was staying.
I was always staying.
I didn’t realize I was avoiding his table until I saw he’d placed a twenty-dollar bill near the edge of it, a signal that he was ready to go. Because he would go, he would leave, and I would stay.
Just another normal day.
“I’ll grab your change,” I said, reaching for the twenty.
He shook his head. “Not necessary.”
“Thank you,” I said softly, smiling. “And, hey, have fun in Washington. It’s… that’s where I want to go. I’m saving up now. My dream school is there.” I shrugged, not sure why I was telling him. I was one-hundred percent sure he didn’t care. “Can’t wait for an October where I don’t sweat,” I added with a chuckle.
I lifted my eyes to his, ready to walk back to the bar and leave him be, but he stopped me short.
“Want to come?”
I balked. “Excuse me?”
“To Washington. Do you want to come with me?”
For a moment, I just stared at him, the way I imagined I’d stare at a naked man running down the street or someone asking me to loan them a million dollars.
And then I laughed.
“Are you crazy? I can’t just go with you,” I said, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it all. “You’re a stranger. I don’t even know your name. You could be a serial killer.”
He watched me, those damn lines forming between his brows, and then he shrugged.
“Okay.”
He wiped his mouth with his napkin before dropping it onto his plate as he stood. My heart was in my throat again, because when he wasn’t sitting in a booth, he towered over me. He was at least six feet of lean muscle and hard edges, and he shoved the sleeves of his sweater up his arms a bit more, eyes catching mine as he stepped into my space.
“You never answered my question.”
I swallowed, body trapped in a strange limbo, torn between leaning into him and running as far as I could in the opposite direction.
“What makes you happy?”
My books, my dog, yoga, the way the sun always manages to come back, no matter how dark the storm.
I opened my mouth, ready to answer this time, since I’d run over the responses a thousand times in my head at this point, but he turned before I could, leaving me standing there with a list of things that made me happy and a heart that whispered with every beat that the list was a lie.
I didn’t move from the booth until the front door closed behind him, the echo of the little bell ringing in my ears as I silently opened the register and deposited his twenty, counting out the change and dropping it in the tip jar Tammy and I would split at the end of our shift.
“What was that about?” Tammy asked, dropping a pile of dirty dishes into the large bucket we took turns carrying into the back. “I saw him standing all close to you and then he walked away and you just stood there like you’d seen a ghost.”
“He asked me to go with him.”
“What?!”
I nodded, arms feeling foreign as I grabbed a wash cloth and wiped down the bar. “He’s going to Washington. I told him that’s where my dream school is. And he asked if I wanted to go with him.”
“Oh, my God!”
“Yeah.”
Tammy stood with her hands hooked on her hips, shaking her head frantically before she threw her arms up. “Well, you have to go! What are you still doing here?!”
I scoffed, rolling my eyes. “Oh, yeah, Tammy. Let me just go jump into a car with a random guy and let him drive me across the country.”
“Um, yes. Do that. Go. Now.” She stole the rag from my hands, shoving me toward the door.
“Tammy!” I wriggled out of her grasp. “That would be insane. And dangerous. He could kill me!”
“Oh, yeah, because he really looks like the murderer type.”
“They don’t exactly have a specific look,” I deadpanned.
She sighed, gripping my arms in her weathered hands. “Listen to me, Cooper. You have been working at this diner since the day you turned sixteen, and saving to move to Washington since that very day, too. Now, here you are, twenty years old, still dying to get out of Mobile and still way too smart to waste your life ‘saving’ and never doing.” Tammy paused, her eyes searching mine. “You’re stuck, baby girl. And that’s okay, we’ve all been stuck a time or two before. But this is it, your chance to pull your feet from the muck of Mobile and that awful place you’ve called home for way too long.”
I frowned, my heart sinking with her words. It was true, I was stuck, but this wasn’t a part of my plan. He wasn’t a part of my plan.
“I… I don’t have enough yet.”
“Yes, you do,” she said, reaching both fists into the tip jar and pulling every single dollar out of it. She wadded it up and shoved it in my front apron pocket. “This should help, and last week’s paycheck hit our accounts this morning. If you run out of cash along the way or need help once you’re in Seattle, just call me. I’m serious.” She shook her head, a crazed smile on her face. “I mean, what do I honestly spend my money on anyway other than scratch-off tickets?”
My hands were clammy, and I wrung them together, still shaking my head. “I don’t even know if I got in.”
“You’ll get in. If not this semester, then next, and you know it.”
“What if he kidnaps me?!” I whisper-yelled.
At that, Tammy paused, like she’d just realized she was stuffing me into a car with a stranger. Her eyes shot up to the door before finding mine again. “Look, I know it’s a little crazy. It’s a little scary. In fact, I think this is why I never had kids because encouraging you to do this isn’t very motherly or whatever. But, Cooper, remember what I said this morning?” Her eyes lit up again. “I could feel it. I knew something big was going to happen, and this is it.”
“Me getting kidnapped by a strange boy was the good feeling you had?”
“You’re not getting kidnapped, you’re getting a free ride to a new life. Give me your phone.”
I couldn’t do anything in that moment but stare at her.
“Phone.” She said with a snap of her fingers. She snatched the device from my hands as soon as I numbly pulled it from my pocket, and then she was tapping around on the screen. “There. I shared your location with both me and Lily. I’ll keep an eye on you the whole time. And you call me every morning and every night to check in, okay?”
“What about Wyatt? I can’t just leave him short-staffed.”
“Don’t worry about this place.” She waved her hand. “We’ll manage.”
“And my parents—“
“Are awful people who have always treated you like a mistake and a regret instead of a human.”
My throat was tight with the air I couldn’t inhale fully, heart like a war drum under my ribs. “I can’t… I can’t do this. I—“
“Yes, you can. He has a car. He’s gorgeous, in case you didn’t notice. And he’s a free ticket to the place you’ve always wanted to go. Cooper,” she said my name to call my attention back to her, hands on my arms again as she leveled her face with mine. “You are dying in this town. Not your body, but your soul.” Her eyes pleaded with mine like she knew from experience. “Life isn’t supposed to be safe,” she added with a laugh. “If it was, they wouldn’t call it living. They’d just call it existing. And you’ve existed long enough, baby girl. It’s time to live.”
My eyes darted back and forth between hers, brain warring with my soul.
Be safe.
Take a chance.
This is crazy.
This could be fun.
You could die.
You could finally live.
You don’t even know him.
You want to.
Leaving Alabama is scary.
Leaving Alabama is what you’ve always wanted.
Tammy leaned in even closer, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Your worthless parents are going to suck you dry if you stay. Don’t let them. This is it, Cooper. This is life calling.” She shrugged. “Are you going to answer, or just let it ring?”
I think I went blind in those next few moments, because I hardly recall rounding the edge of the bar. I barely remember the feel of my heart in my throat and the sun on my face as I pushed through the front door just as he started backing out of the spot where he’d parked his convertible.
“Wait!” I called, the sound of my own voice breaking through the haze.
He stopped, sunglasses reflecting the front of the diner I never thought I’d leave as I struggled to catch my breath.
“I just need to grab my stuff.”