2 | in which he watches her break

Kidnap me from my reality,

And crushed pieces in my soul,

Color me outside the lines,

Until my shattered heart is whole.

.\.|./.

Ryan Falls

|in which he watches her break|

It makes no sense, really, whatever the hell he's saying.

Rubbing my forehead with the tips of my fingers, I listen to Mark complain about my good looks. Yes, that's right. My boss has a problem with the way I look because girls stand in line for way too long and make the customers complain. I don't really know how I'm supposed to fix this. Maybe wearing a Pennywise mask on my face will help. Who will come to Creekside to buy coffee then will be a matter to discuss.

"That's it. You're serving tables from now on."

I look up at Mark's bespectacled face and raise my eyebrows. "Sure. Would you like me to wear a sack over my head too?"

The way his pale cheeks blush tells me Mark isn't particularly impressed by nonhumorous levels of sass. He's a man who takes things far too seriously for my liking. Despite the fact that I have been working under his supervision for nearly two months now, he still doesn't know that when I say 'fuck logic', I mean he's being illogical, not that I want him to fuck the young rapper named logic.

This alone is enough to tell me Mark and I can never live under one roof. Or even work under.

"There are tables waiting. Go get their orders."

With that final command, Mark pushes his wooden-framed spectacles higher on the bumpy bridge of his nose and spins around with such speed that his nonexistent long hair metaphorically slaps me in the face. I almost wish I was standing in front of him rather than sitting on the dingy wooden stool he had pointed me to when he summoned me in the chiller slash store-room. Seeing as how I'm one whole foot taller than him, he might not have looked so intimidating staring up at me with his hooked nose.

Sighing because I need this job and I'm too much of a nice guy to walk up to Mark and stuff my ugly white shirt down his throat before walking out to the background of applause, I rise slowly to my feet and walk out of the swinging door and back into the bustling cafe. I snatch one a notepad off the counter and dig out a pen from the drawers before scanning the place and making my way over to the quietest corner.

My eyes remain fixed on a couple seated near the window, a blonde girl and a white-blond guy who hisses something at her under his breath. His blue eyes flash in her direction as she shakes her head and says something I can't hear.

Maybe I should stay away from them for now.

Deciding they're better left alone, I turn my attention towards a slightly older man at the table next to the couple's. The man with tired brown eyes and mousy brown hair is attempting to scribble something onto sheets and sheets of paper, which I realize are some kind of application for an insurance policy.

I glance at his untouched sub and the still-full ceramic cup in front of him. The man hasn't even touched his food and steam has stopped emanating from his previously scorching coffee, a thin sheen of cream floating lazily on top of the deep brown liquid.

"Would you like me to bring you something else?" I ask the man who looks up at me with hazy eyes.

He stares and blinks a few times as if trying to verify I'm actually real and not a figment of his imagination. I'm used to being stared at now, to be honest. My tanned skin and chiseled jaw don't belong in Alaska, neither does my head of dark-raven hair and the muscles still present from three years of heavy workout. My body makes me stand out -- the LA boy running from his LA roots -- until hiding becomes impossible.

I wish it didn't.

Hiding has become my safety mechanism, something that keeps me away from all the scrutiny. It's a delightful feeling, being invisible. I have truly begun to appreciate it.

I wasn't always like this though. I might have been an Animagus all my life, changing, modifying, and morphing into whatever felt better, whatever protected me better.

At first, it was the introvert, then the extrovert, the secluded kid, the bad boy -- I tried them all, finally realizing that being myself is probably the easiest of all. None of the masks fit. It's great to pretend, but it's exhausting. How far can we go? How long can we pretend to be someone we aren't?

"Uh, no, thank you," the man says at last, forcing a small smile that stretches his skin over his bony face. He sighs and closes his eyes, inhaling deeply through his round nose and running a hand over his growing stubble. "Unless you can somehow fill these out for me and save me the trouble?"

I return his smile, not answering but relieved that he isn't treating me as an outsider like most of the other natives too. Mostly when they see me, they can instantly tell I'm not from around here. So when they turn around and ask me where I'm from, I expect them to laugh in my face.

Why Alaska, they ask. I shrug, not having an answer to give. What do I tell them? That I wanted to get as far away as possible from the California sun, the LA heat, the flashbacks, and memories. I moved away from the air and soil that had witnessed the demise of my soul and stood watch, silent and untattered. The air was the same. The sun was the same. The earth was the same. LA was the same.

Only ... I wasn't.

And I wanted to be. So badly. So desperately.

So I got the first plane to the closest family I had, my beautiful should-have-been-sister-in-law. My cousin should have married her when he had the chance. Instead, he lost her. But I gained something — a sister. Or the closest thing to that.

Nobody gets it, but I love Alaska. It's the opposite of LA in all the ways I love.

Here, nobody knows who I am. Nobody cares. I could be invisible for all I care or walk around in a gorilla costume and nobody would glance twice. This isn't LA, where every eyelid you batter makes headlines. This is frozen Alaska, where people are as dead as the earth they walk on.

Nobody knows anybody. Nobody wants to know anybody.

"Just shut the fuck up!"

The sound of a cup crashing to bits reaches me from the left. I turn around in time to see the man from the neighboring table jump to his feet. Disregarding the fact that he broke something he should be paying for now, he straightens up and takes off towards the exit. His companion sits frozen opposite his now-empty chair, unmoving. The guy walks out, leaving a thick silence behind.

I glance towards the counter to see Mark's face redden like a ripe tomato, his eyes fixed on the shards of ceramic on the floor next to my feet. Of course, his only concern would be getting the girl to pay for what her friend just broke. It's the cup they care about.

Not her.

Somebody laughs somewhere, breaking the suffocating silence. The broken remains of the mug stay still, and the broken girl does too. Dropping her head into her hands so that her face is hidden from my view, she sits there.

Funny how the breaking of things takes precedence over the breaking of people.

Funny how they think pretending they aren't broken will somehow heal them.

Funny how we call things funny when they really aren't.

Over the shatters I step, stopping next to the girl and hoping to break her out of her thoughts. "Can I get you some—" I begin.

"You're going to have to pay for that." Mark's voice is louder than mine and right beside me. How the man made it across the café in the blink of an eye escapes me, but the accusation in his tone does not.

"I know." The girl breathes without looking up. Her voice is heavy with tears and stifled by the thick sweater she's wearing.

"I'll put it on the tab and—"

"Dude, give her a minute to breathe, can't you?" I speak up before I can stop myself, not caring that Mark already hates me and is looking for an excuse to kick me out.

His eyes spin to my face and he opens his mouth to spit some insult at me. Before he can utter a single word, though, the girl has risen to her feet and sighed.

I watch her as she digs into her pocket and fishes out a few crumbled dollar notes. Without counting the money she's handing over, she drops the ball of crumpled notes on the table and sidesteps me to make for the exit. Without looking up to make eye contact with me, she walks out into the chilly winds, the door swinging shut behind her.

As Mark reaches for the money and unfurls it to count, I have to make a conscious effort to keep my anger at bay. I'm pissed off. Not only at the man who made the dramatic walkout and left his girl to clean up his mess. I'm madder at the man next to me who couldn't be compassionate enough to give her a few minutes of breathing space.

I turn away to keep myself from snapping, muttering under my breath.

"Men ... fucking assholes everywhere."

.\.|./.

A/N: Same plot but an entirely different story. What does that mean? It means that the storyline will be the same, the focus on mental health, abuse, and second chances, but the events and their sequence is likely to considerably differ from the first draft. I hope you liked the story if you read it the first time. Even if you didn't, I'm sure this version is going to be much MUCH better <3