Author: Tanya
Rating: Mature
Category: Dreamer and a little Candy
Disclaimer: I do not own a thing, except for my thoughts and ideas and a couple of the characters I made up for the story. I will state for the record upfront, this story is in no way in association with You’ve Got Mail staring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks other than the fact that I make great use of the Internet. Basically, this is a MySpace (which is also not mine nor do I really use it in the story...but just incase!) meets Roswell, but that’s not my plot, so keep that in mind. I think I can come up with something a bit more creative than that
Summary: What if the person you spent your whole life looking for, is someone you already met?
A/N – And so here is yet another story I write. This will be short, probably no more than ten parts and I have a good portion of this written. I’ve also edited it more times than I care to share, but I’m not perfect and so there may still be some mistakes, and for that I apologize. This will be updated on a weekly basis on Wednesday's. I just needed to get this story written before it drove me mad and sometimes I need a break from the norm. I also have to thank Stacie & La'Shon because they keep me positive ... and always make time for me!
Dedicated to: Tigger, because I won't give up if you don't
love you! *Tonto*<center>
Banner by: Me</center>
Chapter One
<center>Sweet Misery</center>
A soft light from the candle burning cast a yellow tinged glow illuminating the tiny corner of the room. Clicking of deft fingers against the keyboard was all that could be heard in the stark hour of the night. It was her ritual for months now, wake up after a nightmare, and walk over to the desk in the far corner of her quaint living room to reach out to others.
How odd she would find comfort, a sense of normalcy, in strangers. Maybe it made her feel better that no one could see her, or directly talk to her if she didn’t want them to. All she had to do was close her screen and move on. Yes, that was much easier than meeting and talking to people when they were standing right in front of her. Making endless judgments about her. How she hated the way eyes would roam her body, her face, and even her clothing, making mental comments with just one look.
How cruel the world truly was, she had learned her lesson a long time ago. And because of that she was smarter and yes, even a little more cynical towards the world. It turned its back on her, and now she would do her best to survive with what she was left with.
Settling back against the old wooden chair, she’d dragged from the kitchen, she logged onto her favorite site. It was a conglomeration of people from all over the world, it wasn’t just a chat room, it was far better than that, she thought with a smile.
As soon as she was prompted she typed in her screen name, sleeplessinroswell, and then entered her password. She waited a moment before her homepage loaded. Once it did, she smiled and relaxed against the rickety chair. Turning, she reached out to the couch nearby, grabbed a pillow and placed it directly behind her. That felt much better, her back and neck were killing her. Today was a busy day at work, as it always was.
Deciding that her page needed some livening, she decided to update the colors. Today she felt a little blue and with a few clicks of her mouse, the perfect theme was selected in a pastel blue with little white daisies. Now it was time to get down to business. First she checked her inbox, and found a message from her online friend, Maria.
Maria was the first person she had met on the CyberCafe, almost eight months ago. It helped that Maria lived on the east coast, since she usually logged on late in the evening.
She didn’t have any friends in town, if she didn’t count the Harding's.
She had met the Harding's well over a year ago, they had taken her in and even given her a job at the diner they owned. They had even extended an invitation for her to stay above the diner in a small two-bedroom apartment, where she now sat. She was more than grateful and more than certain, the Harding’s were the last trustworthy people left, besides Maria, in the world.
In the midst of reading Maria’s long-winded message, she noticed the message bar on the right side of her screen, alerting her to the new members who joined the community within the last twenty-four hours. She loved to peak into the new members’ profiles, and see what their pages had to offer. In fact, she loved to read the blogs, and view all the pictures posted on their pages. That however, wasn’t the best part to her though. The best part were the chat rooms, she loved to talk to different people from all around the world, about anything and everything, all without revealing who she really was.
She could be silly, and outgoing, or she could be shy and teasing, and no one knew whether that was her real personality or not. Too bad, she herself wasn’t quite sure of what her personality was anymore. She had lost that some time ago. Was she funny? She liked to think so. She could entertain her customers for two minutes at a time, and for some of the customers she had to deal with, that was a miracle in and of itself.
Deciding to leave Maria’s two-page message for later, she set her sights on the newcomers to the site. She clicked on the first one, and found an explosion of colors.
“This should be interesting,” she whispered to herself as she folded one leg under the other and began reading what that particular member had to say. It would be another long night, that is, if she didn’t fall asleep in her usual spot…off to the side of her laptop.
<center>****</center>
The diner was packed for the usual morning rush; she couldn’t wait for the day to be over with. She had gotten even less sleep than usual. If only she could sleep like a normal person, but with the nightmares and…
“Miss, my coffee is not hot enough,” came one customers voice and she cringed. Her head was throbbing and she had the darkest circles under her eyes, and now she had to deal with this.
She wondered if people purposely got up in the morning, in a bad mood, and decided to make someone else’s life just a little bit more miserable.
“I’m sorry, sir. I will get you a fresh cup.” She extended a smile forced from the deepest recesses of herself and removed the ceramic cup from the table, taking it back to the counter replace.
Today she had an eight-hour shift, shorter than most, so at least she had something to look forward to.
<center>****</center>
“Daddy, I’m so hungry,” his son said as he rubbed his belly in exaggeration. Max shifted his son a little higher on his chest as he continued down the busy sidewalk.
He had been back in town for six months and between his busy schedule and getting his son to school on time during the week, he didn’t have any downtime. Today, though he had the entire day free and was hell bent on spending it taking his son to breakfast and then to the park. Later, they would have dinner and watch a cartoon together before he put his son to bed.
“I know you are little man, as soon as I find a place that…”
“Oh daddy right there!” his son’s little index finger pointed towards a bright spaceship mounted on the front of a café not more than two feet in front of them.
“Trevor, you only want to eat there because of the spaceship. Let’s see what else there is.” Max strolled past the diner, he took a quick glance inside as he did and noticed that the waitresses were wearing teal green uniforms, with silver alien head aprons, and shiny silver antennas. The sign read, Crashdown Café, what was this place, he wondered to himself.
“Daddy, no! I wanna go there!” Trevor fussed in his father’s arms, causing him to tighten his hold around his squirming son.
“Trev,” Max’s voiced sounded stern but he was a pushover for his son.
“Daddy,” came his five year olds dejected voice.
“Okay, but just this time.” He heard himself say the words, but even he knew they weren’t true. His son had him wrapped around his little pinky finger and to be honest, Max wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Turning around quickly he pulled open the wooden door and scanned the room for a place to sit. He waited until someone came to seat them; too bad his son had little patience for that.
“Right there, daddy. Right over there!” his son bounced in his arms, screeching so loudly that Max hoped the patrons didn’t mind too much.
After settling his son on a booster seat, he scanned the room once again. He was able to take in the full view of the interior. There was orange wallpaper, with green aliens and spaceships. He turned his head and noticed what his son was now looking up at; a mural of a spaceship with three aliens next to it. He shook his head in amusement; this had to be the silliest place he’d ever been inside of.
“Hi, my name is Liz and I’ll be your waitress. Can I get you something to drink?” He and his son’s attention turned to the petite brunette now standing at their table. She placed a menu in front of him along with a smaller children’s menu. Her long straight brown hair was pulled up into a tight ponytail and that silly silver antenna bobbed back and forth. He struggled not to chuckle; instead he turned his gaze down to this son.
“What do you want to drink?” Trevor took a moment to remove his eyes from the shiny antennas to his father’s gaze.
“I want soda.”
“You’re not getting soda,” Max sighed, it was his mistake for letting him try some last week. Now the kid was addicted.
“But I want soda. The cherry kind like you gave me daddy,” Trevor licked his lips and his eyes grew wide with excitement.
A small laugh came from his left, and Max turned to look up at their waitress. He blushed and then felt the need to explain himself. He didn’t want her thinking he was a terrible father giving his five year old soda.
“He wanted to try it out, so I gave him a sip. Who knew the kid would take to it so quickly?” He offered her weak smile to which she returned a bright smile and a look of understanding and of something else he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Was it nervousness or…hell he had no idea.
“I think if you can’t spoil your kids, who will. Right?” Liz placed a hand on the table, and leaned over slightly to regard the child.
“How about some chocolate milk?” When he looked unimpressed with the alternative, she added, “I can make it any color you want.” At that Trevor smiled and nodded his head.
“What color would you like?”
“Uhm…” Trevor surveyed the room as if he couldn’t think of a color on his own, when his eyes settled back on her. “Can I have green?” he asked so innocently that Liz couldn’t help but laugh.
“Of course you can! And for you, sir?” she turned her attention to the boy’s father.
“I’ll take a large orange juice.” Max smiled up at her. He was trying to determine if he liked her calling him sir. Of course she appeared to be younger than him, but not by much.
He wanted to thank her for the help but wasn’t sure if it was appropriate, so he decided against it. She nodded her head and excused herself to retrieve the drinks.
“Daddy, can I have a cheeseburger?” Max tossed his head back in exasperation. Would he have to pay for all his misjudgments when it came to his son? So what, one time he gave him a bite of a cheeseburger for breakfast? He groaned; he was a terrible father.
“Trev, we don’t have that for breakfast. Daddy only let you taste it, but you can only have them for lunch or dinner. Got it?”
Trevor pondered that for a moment before nodding his head. “Got it!”
<center>****</center>
Her hands shook as she poured the juice into the glass. What the hell was wrong with her? She’d seen a thousand guys coming in and out of here, so why did she have such a strong reaction to him?
Probably because he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen up close. His eyes, lord she could have drowned in them. They weren’t quite brown, more on the hazel side, but with a golden hue to them. His hair, an inky black, short on the sides and a little longer in the front. He looked like he stepped right out of GQ magazine.
She’d never had a reaction to a man that strong before in her life. At least not that she could remember. And as of late she hadn’t had any reaction to any man, which is why she needed to pull herself together.
As she mixed the food coloring into the child’s chocolate milk, she couldn’t suppress her smile. He was adorable, and the spitting image of his father. She wondered how old the man was, no, scratch that, she didn’t want to know and she wasn’t interested in the least.
She finished up and walked back over to their table, steeling herself to have no reaction to him at all.
She didn’t like it and she hated that her body betrayed her. It was a foreign feeling for her, reacting to a man, and she wasn’t at all comfortable with it. She couldn’t wait until he left, no matter how good-looking he was, or how adorable his son was.
<center>****</center>
After the waitress left them with their breakfast orders, Max couldn’t help but let his eyes wander around the room for her. When his eyes landed on her, sitting on a stool near the back of the diner, he noticed something he hadn’t when she was waiting on them.
Sadness.
How odd, he thought. Why did she look so sad? It wasn’t that she wore a frown; in fact she was having a conversation with someone behind the counter, yet her eyes spoke volumes about her mind-set.
Even from his position, the profile of her reminded him of his son for just a brief fleeting moment. Whenever Trevor learned something new, he always had this look, as if trying to fit the pieces together in his head. To make sense of it all somehow, even if the entire theory didn’t stick, he still mulled it over in his head before it became a passing thought.
To be remembered or discarded.
He shifted in his booth; he needed to not worry about other people and their supposed problems. He had enough of his own to handle raising his son. In fact, it seemed that Trevor was now playing with the syrup on his plate; signally it was time for them to get going.
As if she knew, the waitress Liz, that was her name he recalled, approached the table.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked and he couldn’t help but notice that the sadness had disappeared from her eyes.
“No, thank you.” Max reached in his back pocket for his wallet but froze when he watched as she pulled a damp paper towel from behind her back, and offered it to him.
“I thought…I figured…he would get pretty messy,” she stuttered out and grew mortifyingly flushed.
Max reached out and grabbed it from her delicate fingers, and offered her a genuine smile. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. Have a great day.” She waved back to Trevor when he lifted his short arm in the air and said his goodbye as she walked away.
“You ready to go little man?” Max asked, lifting his son up into his arms. Trevor simply nodded as he surveyed the room looking for the pretty girl with the brown hair that served him and his daddy.
Max walked to the register and was so busy with that, and trying to keep his son from fussing in his arms, that he never noticed the petite brunette come up behind him and sneak his son something to take with him.
A little memento, that happened to be silver and shiny. She smiled and walked away giving the small child another little wave before disappearing into the back room for her break.
TBC…
but I *heart* you just the same! Thank you for everything!
Thanks!