O N E

Making her way out of the last class of the school year, the blonde girl smiled in joy. It wasn’t that she hated school (she actually enjoyed it) but moving on from the junior year of high school with good SAT scores, a potential boyfriend, and perfect grades, felt amazing.

Their lockers would still be theirs the next year, so after smiling at the pictures of her friends in hers, Emmie closed the door and walked out of the school and down the stairs.

A hand with perfectly manicured nails was placed on her upper arm a few moments later and the girl smiled, immediately knowing who it was.

“V,” she mused.

“Em,” Victoria squealed and threw her arms around the blonde’s neck. “I can’t believe we did it.”

She chuckled, rolling her eyes and pushing her best friend off of her. “You’re perky today,” she mentioned with a smile on her face.

“Well, yeah,” the raven-haired girl said, Emmie secretly cringing at the thought of her adding a ‘duh’ do it. Fortunately, she didn’t. “We just finished our junior year. Only one more in this hellhole of a town and then we’re free.”

“I’m in,” Samuel chirped, suddenly appearing next to the girls and linking his arm through Emmie’s just as Victoria had. The three of them started moving towards the diner about a mile away. “New York, here we come.”

Emmie smirked at her friends’ excitement and decided to change the topic. Personally, she thought the same way about their future but didn’t want to encourage the two of them into thinking that getting accepted to great colleges in the best city in the country was easy. They all had dreams and wishes, and she usually was an optimist, but this time, she tried to hold herself back, afraid of breaking her own heart.

“Where’s Christopher?” she asked instead.

“Oh,” Victoria rolled her eyes, Emmie and Samuel sharing a look at the annoyed expression on the girl’s face. “I swear those football practices will kill him. He literally said he has to practice during summer.”

“Well, Vicky, hate to break it to you, but if he truly wants to become a professional, he should practice,” Samuel said, adding, “all the time.”

“I know, I know. Just, I honestly hoped to be with my boyfriend on the first day of summer vacation.”

“Technically, that’s tomorrow, so you can still do that,” Emmie smiled.

“To my other complaint…” Victoria continued, giving the blonde a sharp look. “My bestie is working at a diner the whole summer. And I won’t have the chance to hang out with her.”

“Agree.”

“Guys,” Emmie said, untangling both of her arms and swinging around on her foot, now walking backward. “I’ll still be here. You can come have lunch with me and I’m free every night after six.”

Victoria rolled her eyes, “Yeah, and have a curfew at like nine. I swear one of those days, I’m going to give Alice Davis a piece of my mind.”

The blonde almost snorted at that and turned back around, walking a bit in front of them.

“Honestly, Emmie, no offense, but I still don’t quite understand your wish to work all summer,” Samuel agreed with their raven-haired friend who nodded with a victorious smile.

“I told you guys. I need to get money for college, and my mom wants me to get something on my curriculum.”

“First, your mom shouldn’t worry about your curriculum. Second, your parents are paying for your college. And third, you’re going to get a scholarship, Emmie.” He said it all with such clarity and confidence, that Emmie almost believed it for a second.

“They’ve agreed to pay for the degree that I’d hate.” She sighed. “Just support me guys, I feel bad.”

“You should feel bad if you ditch us for the whole summer,” Victoria said with a huge frown, still a bit angry.

“You’re going to New York for two months, V. Christopher’s only playing football and hanging with the guys. And Sam, you don’t have even a day free for me anyway with your Tinder dates and boyfriend hunting. Just let me have this, please?”

“Fine,” Victoria sighed, giving up.

Samuel threw his arm around Emmie’s shoulders with a smile. “Alright, Emmie. We support you.”

“Thank you,” she nodded, satisfied.

The smile stayed on her lips until they reached the diner, only growing bigger as they did so.

#

Gently chewing on her lower lip, Emmie turned side to side in front of the mirror, frowning at the way her stomach looked bloated in the outfit. She released her lip before having the chance to draw blood, and instead placed her thumbnail between her rows of teeth, her bright green eyes solemnly focusing on her stomach.

A knock on the door of the small bathroom made her jump and sigh, dropping her hand. “Emmie, everything okay?” Victoria questioned worriedly. “You’ve been there for a while.”

Clearing her throat briefly, the blonde faked a tight-lipped smile even if her friend couldn’t see her. “Yeah, V! I’ll be out in a moment.”

Her voice was small and insecure, and her friend understood almost immediately, but kept quiet about the matter, not about to start giving her the whole talk again. “I’m sure you look beautiful, Em,” she said instead, with a softer tone, a smile still hiding somewhere in it. “I’ll be waiting outside with Samuel. Take your time.”

Emmie breathed thankfully, but couldn’t quite find the words, so she simply hummed in agreement, and turned back to the mirror after hearing the high heels walk away, back to the counter probably.

The blonde knew what her mom would say if she saw her insecure like this. Emilie, that’s exactly why I want you to have a healthy diet. We can’t have you feel bad about yourself. That’s not what we, Davis women, do.

The problem was that Alice Davis never seemed to realize why her youngest daughter was feeling that way. She didn’t acknowledge the fact that it had everything to do with how she was raised and nothing to do with what Emmie ate.

It was a never-ending battle with her mother, that the little Emmie had never had the guts to mention. But, growing older, she had had enough of her judging looks and flicks of the tongue. She was trying to stand up for herself. But perhaps the setback was the words she never learned to push out of her mind.

Emilie, pull your stomach in! Emilie, roll your shoulders back and bite on the insides of your cheeks! Emilie, change that dress, we don’t want you looking fat, now do we?

Emmie wanted to scream at her reflection; wanted to ask it why her? Why was it still her with the bloated stomach? Why didn’t the constant workouts help her burn it all off? Her mother had an answer for that, every time.

Because sugar and carbohydrates are not good for you.

The problem was, Emmie didn’t remember the last time she ate sugar or carbohydrates. It was the constant small plates of salad and—occasionally—hard-boiled eggs that she consumed. Not much else besides this and water.

Can’t be dehydrated, her mother always said.

Her phone buzzed on the toilet lid, and she rolled her eyes, throwing those insecurities in the wind for now and trying to suppress her mother’s voice ringing in her head. She tightened the apron around her waist and packed her school clothes into her backpack before unlocking the bathroom door and stepping out.

Her friends gave her all the attention when she stood in the space between the neon-colored booths of the diner. They were both smiling, and suddenly, mirroring them, there was one on her lips as well as she gave her body a spin while stepping closer to the two.

“How do I look?” she asked, more perkily than intended, but feeling great for it.

“You know, I wasn’t sure at first, but now… You look like you belong here,” Victoria said with a gentle smile, making the blonde beam.

“Working those legs,” Samuel nodded and gave her a wink as he slid off the table he was sitting on and into the booth instead. Clearing his throat solemnly, he raised a finger. “Let me be your first customer.”

The girls giggled together and Emmie shook her head slightly. “Still gotta learn how everything works here.”

“Oh please, we’ve come here together since we were in diapers. If I know how to work the cash machine, so do you,” Samuel insisted.

“I need to talk to Carl,” Emmie stated the same way and handed him her bag. “If you two don’t mind though, you could stay around till later? I needed to make a few pies and cupcakes so that they could try me out, and I’m pretty sure we’ll give them away for free if they end up great.”

Victoria nodded eagerly, and Samuel didn’t seem to mind either, both of them taking out their phones. “I’d eat anything you bake, anytime Em.”

The blonde smiled and walked to the counter where a waiter was taking orders. Emmie wondered he had to be new, too. She had never seen him around and didn’t think he went to their school either. Settling on the thought that he was either a few years older than her or from the Southside, Emmie waited until the customers’ line had disappeared before trying to speak to him.

“Hi. I’m Emmie.” The guy turned his attention on her and finding the girl smiling, he couldn’t help but to do the same and shake her outstretched hand.

“I know. Mateo.”

As they dropped their hands, she tilted her head a bit, biting her lower lip softly. “Are you new here, too? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

“Oh, I usually work night shifts,” the guy told her. That made sense. She had a curfew at nine during school that hopefully would extend to eleven during summer, considering it had been ten last year.

“But?”

“But,” he chuckled. “Someone called in sick. And Carl needed a waiter for the last day of school that everyone is having. The diner is packed… Plus, there’s this pretty blonde newbie he needed for me to educate.”

Emmie’s cheeks turned a bit pink as she bucked her head. It was a compliment, obviously, but he looked more Samuel’s type than hers. Even his eyes lingered on the boy a few booths away. “That’s Samuel,” Emmie spoke quietly, and when Mateo’s head shot up, looking at her with a bit widened eyes, she arched her eyebrows. “What?”

“I’m… I wasn’t…”

Emmie saved him from the trouble, nodding as she suddenly understood, and then winked playfully. “Won’t tell anyone if you show me how to work around here.”

The guy chuckled, liking her already, and nodded. “Sure. Even though I’m pretty sure you know this place better than I do.”

“What do you mean?”

“I moved to the Southside about six years ago. And I know for a fact that you’re Emmie Davis, the daughter of Alice and Peter Davis, who have according to the legend lived here since forever… So yeah, I think you’ve been around longer.”

Emmie smiled in confusion. “What about my parents has made you know them by names?”

He smirked, not arrogantly, but it wasn’t sweet either. Nudging his head towards a chair some feet away behind the counter, Emmie followed his eyes and sighed when she saw a leather jacket, the words SOUTHSIDE VIPERS burning her eyes around the snake symbol.

The guy had waited for something like a snarl or an insult for being in the gang and was surprised when Emmie simply looked back up at him and shook her head a bit.

“My parents are being stupid,” she said. “They hold grudges for a long time, and I don’t even know the whole story. I’m really sorry that they write those articles about you guys in the Register. I’ve been trying to get them to pull them down, but they never listen to anything I say, so it’s not a surprise they don’t about that either.”

Pleasantly surprised, the guy nodded and forgot that matter. “Noted. Now let’s do the orders before people refuse to leave tip later.”

Emmie smiled at that and let the guy serve food to everyone while she was busy behind the counter. Just as they had agreed on Emmie taking the next one, Carl came out of the kitchen with a smile and gave the girl a hug. “Good to have you here, honey. Want to try out some of the recipes?”

“Sure,” the girl chirped with a big smile, genuinely excited to do so.

“Wait, you cook?” Mateo asked while making coffee for the customers.

“Bake,” Emmie corrected. “Gonna try out my skills and then give it all away, so if you’re hungry…”

There was a smile on his face as he nodded, glimpsing towards Samuel for a second before smirking to himself and lifting the two cups of coffee from the counter. “I am. And I’ll call a few friends of mine who certainly wouldn’t mind free food, either.”

He wandered off and Emmie followed Carl to the kitchen where his grandson was working as well. He was a year younger than Emmie, and a nerd, much like her. They had talked many times in the diner throughout their lives, but never much at school.

He was the typical nerd with classes, zits, and braces, and always hanged with his friends from the chess club. Emmie, though, loved to stay in her comfort zone with Christopher, Victoria, and Samuel (and occasionally the cheerleaders that she was forced to sit with every Wednesday at lunch).

So, even as she knew his name was Tate (Tate Tate was something she would never name her son, she decided), they weren’t exactly friends.

Giving the boy a small smile with a wave, she focused her attention on Carl and his recipes.

#

The bell to the diner rang just as Emmie, Carl, and Mateo carried out plates full of cupcakes, and three pies. The blonde didn’t have time to look at who had just entered, but she knew for a fact that they were Mateo’s friends from the Southside.

“Emmie Davis, you’ve outdone yourself,” Samuel said when planting himself on a stool behind the counter, Victoria following elegantly, and grabbing a cupcake.

“You really have, these look amazing, Em,” the girl agreed and pointed at the cherry pie. “I’d like a slice of that, please.”

“Who are you, Olivia Cooper?” Samuel joked, and then, realizing the named girl was standing behind him, pulled a face that made Emmie giggle.

She was about to welcome the redhead as she heard a moan that definitely wasn’t delicate. Her head whipped to the other direction to look at whoever had managed that. Her stomach tightened, looking at a boy standing there, already finishing one of the cupcakes she had made and taking another.

“So good,” he said with a full mouth, and when taking a bite of his next one, met her eyes.