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The Halfway Cafe: A Fictional Narrative

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We walked outside and Tammy let go of my hand when she saw her mother standing at the car and went into her arms. "How exciting!" Amy kissed the top of Tammy’s head and I tried to put my arms around them too, but then I looked back at the school and the cameras were following us out. Amy waved to them and I watched Tammy turn and do the same. "Let's go," I said, resting my hands on their backs and pushing them into the car. I raised my hand to the cameras so that it looked like a goodbye, but really it was a barrier. We went to eat at Tammy’s favorite diner: The Halfway Cafe. I told her she could get whatever she wanted, even if it was vanilla ice cream for lunch. Her lips curled into a smirk and I wondered why I was bribing her. To …show more content…

"I thought you hated chocolate," I said to Tammy and she shook her head. My wife spoke for the both of us during the rest of lunch and Tammy and I nodded and laughed along with her. Speaking only when we absolutely had to. "You're missing it!" Amy shouted from the living room as they watched the news, our story the feature of the night. I stood in the kitchen, pacing around for a while, then grabbed a stool, stood on top and acted like I was fixing the wooden letters above the stove: Live, Laugh, Love. Amy came into the kitchen after the story played. “What are you doing?” she asked, standing in her bathrobe, hair pulled back, looking tired and confused. “Fixing this. It’s …show more content…

The same ones were still there nine years later, even in the same place, and I stared at one that said RELAX with seashells framing the letters. I told myself to listen. That’s why she hung it in the first place so we could always remind ourselves of what we should be doing. Just relax. Relax. But when I flicked on the TV and put my feet up on the coffee table, our story was playing again on the late news. I hid my face in my hands. Dug my fingers into my skull. I let my hands fall eventually and watched myself on TV. Standing tall in my uniform for no reason at all. Reaching around the box for my daughter, for someone to pull me out and back into something familiar. My five o'clock shadow coming through in the afternoon. It made me look dirty and unconcerned. My brown eyes looking darker than usual and confused, as if wondering whom the little blonde is that’s standing in front of me. I listened to my robotic words: Yes. Eight months. Of course. We kissed. We talked. Leave me alone, was what anyone who had a brain could really

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