She stared down at her sickly yellow plate, following the circle as it dipped in and out of the chips and cracks. Her eyes bored listless holes in the burnt toast, scraping away the singed crumbs with her irises. The entire weight of her body was focused on the point of contact between her left elbow and the sticky linoleum. With her other hand, she corralled hash browns around her plate with her fork, avoiding the two abject eggs that looked more over-hard than over-easy. She sighed under her breath and punctured the membrane of the egg closest to her. A few pathetic drops of yolk trickled out from the opening, competing with the girl for the saddest sight in the diner. She smirked to herself at this thought and leaned back in her booth, finding some small comfort in the fact that she could certainly take first prize.

          She shifted her attention to the gaping darkness just behind the window to her right. Her gaze panned around the gloomy diner, entirely empty save for herself and the sole waitress idling behind the counter. Though she would never admit it, she was incredibly grateful for the diner’s existence, a dingy safe haven in the middle of the vast night outside. Looking out the window again, she felt incredibly small and vulnerable, a tiny speck framed by fluorescent lights, perfectly visible to anyone who might look in. She pulled her arms around her body and tried to burrow deeper into the booth, running her mind through all–

          “Hey hon, can I get you anything else? More coffee?” Her nervous thoughts were interrupted by the waitress, who had presumably walked over because she saw the girl looking around. The waitress spoke with a sickeningly sweet southern accent, which the girl thought was probably fake, due to the Mason-Dixon line being no less than four states south, and the waitress looking to the girl like someone who had never left her home town.

          “Oh, no, thank you. I’m alright.” The girl absentmindedly scanned the waitress up and down. Not that pretty, but certainly not ugly; vaguely pleasant looking overall. Likewise, somewhere in the middle of skinny and fat, though she landed closer to skinny on that scale. Overall, not very memorable. A throwaway character.

          The waitress was still standing there awkwardly, holding up a pot of coffee, not really sure what to do with no one else to serve. The girl decided to stand her ground, see how long this could last. She cast the waitress her most unwavering gaze and put her feet up on the opposite booth. The waitress felt uncomfortable, but smiled, as she had been trained to do as a waitress when faced with an uncomfortable situation. At this, a simple twitching of facial muscles, the girl broke, her feet falling back to the floor. She wasn’t used to being smiled at. She searched for a name tag on the waitress’s uniform, but couldn’t find one, not even a faded rectangle where one might supposed to be.

          “I like your earrings,” she blurted out, hoping against hope that the waitress was, in fact, wearing some. She cursed herself silently for not choosing something she could definitively see, but the waitress was really, truly unremarkable.

          “Aww thank you so much darling, that’s so sweet of you to say. My ex-boyfriend got ‘em for me. We’re not together anymore – well I guess the “ex” coulda told you that – but I think they’re nice. Remind me of good times, y’know?” She smiled a smile that was three fifths happy, one fifth sad, and one fifth nostalgic.

          “Hey, do you mind if I sit with you for a spell? My feet are killing me.” The girl absentmindedly waved her into the booth opposite. The waitress sat and took her left shoe off and began rubbing her foot. “Oooohwee, my puppies are howling!”

          The girl looked at her intently for a second before asking, “Was he good to you? Your ex- boyfriend, I mean.”

          The waitress considered her question as if it weren’t something kind of weird to ask a stranger. “He wasn’t bad, certainly not. Of course, he had his moments, but who doesn’t? He cared about me, I can say that. He was better to me than most men in this town.” Here she chuckled, and gave the girl a knowing, conspiratorial look. The girl tried to force the same, but just ended up looking down at her sad plate.

          “Do you like the eggs? I made them myself.” The waitress kept talking, oblivious to the girl’s change in mood. “I’ve never been much of a cook, but the chef was sick tonight, so I had to fill in. They said they’d pay me double for this shift so I couldn’t say no.”

          The girl looked up again. “They’re good, really good. These are cold, though, could you make me two more?”

          The waitress grinned from ear to ear and practically hopped up. “I’ll be right back, don’t move a muscle!” she called, already on her way into the kitchen.

          ​​​​​​​The girl slowly got up and put on her coat. When the waitress got back a few minutes later, the girl was long gone, already far away into the night.