TSTS: "The Girl in Question" Part II

5:31
Darren unlocks the front door.

“Why do we open at 5:30 again?” he asks.

“I’m trying to teach you how to hate,” I reply.

So far, so good.

5:36
No one has come in yet, so we decide to help ourselves to some coffee and sit in one of the booths until we can figure out something better to do.

“I can see myself in my coffee,” I tell him.

“That’s great,” Darren tells me as he sips his.

“…do you ever think that your reflection is really just another you?”

“Nope,” he sips again, “I’m pretty sure you’re alone on that one.”

“…the coffee version of me is totally black.”

“What’s the werd.”

“A-werd up.”

5:38
Darren can’t take it anymore.

“We’re wasting our talents here,” he complains.

“I have talents?”

“I’m wasting my talents here,” he corrects himself.

“I was actually hoping you’d say ‘yes’,” I tell him somewhat murkily.

“You work in your family’s coffee shop, you can’t figure out how write beginnings to stories, and you can’t talk to girls,” Darren says, “None of these things are talents. These things are going to make your life miserable.”

“I can talk to girls,” I say while furrowing my brow.

Darren raises an eyebrow, and smiles a little.

“Anyway…” he ignores my comment, “We need to start working on our plan.”

“Our plan?”

“To be awesome enough to leave this place,” he clarifies.

“Oh, that plan.”

“I think we can actually do it,” he tells me, “But you’re going to have to be a lot cooler than you are right now.”

“Please,” I say, pointing very casually at myself while my face attempts to look very cool, “You don’t get cooler than this.”

There’s a pause in the conversation, and then we both laugh, because the thought of me being anywhere within the realm of “coolness” is hilarious, and possibly funny.

After we calm down a bit, I say, “What do you have in mind?”

He shrugs, “I want to start off easy. See if I can’t get you to ride in a car without completely freaking out.”

I cringe at the thought. Obviously, I hate cars. And vehicles. And giant mechanical things that move really, really fast.

So many things can go wrong while you’re inside of a car. For instance, while the engine is doing those rev-things, where the gears and such spin and spin and spin at ridiculous speeds – nuts and bolts could fly off, shatter the windshield and rip right through my skull. Or some really depressed person could get behind the wheel of one and decide that slamming his vehicle into the one I’m riding in would be an awesome way to die. Or ninjas could attach bombs to the gas tank while we’re driving, and no one would notice until we slowed down enough to hear the ticking and by that time it would be too late because WE WOULD ALREADY BE DEAD.

“I’m not sure if I like this plan of yours,” I say with narrowed eyes, “You’re not trying to kill me, are you?”

“Only a little bit.”

I shrug, “I’m cool with that.”