“You’d be a lot prettier if you smiled!”

I looked up from my purse and stared the cashier down, thinking that this had to be a joke. The smirk on his face made me realize he was being serious.

He probably thought that he was just trying to pay me a compliment. When I was younger, I might have awkwardly obliged and laughed through my discomfort. But these days, I didn’t find it at all charming or even tolerable, and it took everything in my power not to tell him off. 

I forced a dry chuckle and tried to grab my bag of food. He held it back out of my reach.

“I’m not giving you the food until you smile.”

Gritting my teeth, I scrunched my lips upwards, which he returned with a condescending glance. “Come on! I know you can do better than that.”

Had I been in New York with my new friends, I wouldn’t have hesitated to put him in his place, but this was Gatlinburg; causing a scene would have accomplished nothing.

Giving the most genuine smile I could muster, I dropped it when the food made its way into my hand.

“Aw,” he said, his drawl hanging at the end of his disappointment. I turned around and walked away as fast as I could, figuring my burger would be just fine without ketchup.

I made my way to the soda fountain, loading my bag with napkins and my cup with diet sprite. The door opened and shut multiple times, but none of their bodies belonged to Jason. He hadn’t met me at the airport like he always had when I came home from school and hadn’t made any effort to talk to me before today. Last night he told me to meet up with him here before his shift at his father’s garage so we could catch up, and in that instant, any bit of worry or resentment I harbored vanished.

Still, I wasn’t sure if he’d show up. His lack of enthusiasm didn’t pass my ears, settling into my stomach and tossing it around all night. I bit down on my cuticle and tapped my eraser onto the table, telling myself to be patient.

I took my food over to a table by the window and grabbed my notebook out of my bag, not wanting to eat until he got here.

“Where’s that smile?” the cashier said as he walked by my table, broom in hand. “I’ve got a ten hour shift and I’m in a better mood then you are.” When I didn’t respond, he held his hands up. “At least you’re not working, right?”

My eyes slit in his direction until he felt uncomfortable enough to walk away. The woman at the table next to me shook her head and her daughter stared at me in amazement, the “mommy why is that lady so scary” teetering at the edge of her tongue.

I was deciding on whether or not to start a poem when a pair of feet approached me. Slamming my hand on the table, I mustered all the force I could. “Take a hint and stop bothering me you piece of—.”

I looked up to see Jason, his hands uncomfortably shifting in his pockets.

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

He grinned. “Damn Sam. I feel sorry for that guy. Lord knows what he did to feel your wrath.”

I forced a chuckle, standing up so I could give him a kiss. His lips felt hard and cold against mine, even though his hands were warm on my waist. “I’m so happy to see you,” I said.

“Same,” he said, pulling away.

“I got our food.” I settled back into my seat while he across from me. I tried not to show my disappointment in my face as I shut my notebook and pushed it to the side, grabbing the bag.

“Looks good,” he said as I set the boxes between us. His hands wrapping around the burger faster than they did around me. I took a few fries and set them on my napkin and took the paper off my burger, placing the buns back inside the bag.

“What are you doing?” His mouth paused mid-chew, a mix of astonishment and disgust in his eyes.

I shrugged. “I’ve been eating foods without gluten mostly.”

I know he wanted to ask ‘since when do you care about gluten?’ but the tension between us was thick enough as it was. He turned his attention back to his own food while unwrapped my knife and fork.

“How was work this morning?”

“Okay,” he said. “Mrs. Thomas brought her car in today and the engine’s shot. We spent an hour telling her it’d just be cheaper to replace the it, but you know how she is.”

“Mmhmm,” I put a bite into my mouth and cringing. “God, this is gross.”

“You love it here though.” His tone was more pleading then questioning.

“Yeah, I do. But I’ve been eating all natural for a while now. Cathleen took us to this farmer’s market and was trying to get me to do the same cleanse that she did. I didn’t want to, but I have so much energy and I’ve lost twenty pounds and she was…”

He wasn’t listening anymore, waving in the other direction at some greasy looking guys who just came in the door, calling out for his attention.

“Anyways,” I said louder than necessary, and he turned back to me.

“Sorry. Some guys from work.”

“I figured as much.”

He glanced down at the harsh edge in my voice. “Um,” he said, choking down a bite of food. “How are things at school? You mentioned something about a poetry reading when we talked last.”

“Yeah, a month ago.”

The embarrassment flashed between his eyes, and I decided to meet him halfway.

“A few of us from Dr. Schwartz’s class were invited to read our work at this café. We decided we’d make a thing out of it every month.” I paused before adding, “You should come sometime. It’s at the end of April. Fly up for a few days like you did my freshman year. I’m sure my roommate wouldn’t mind.”

I regretted the words as soon as I said them, but knew by the genuine look of joy on his face that I wouldn’t be able to take it back. “Okay,” he said. “I could take off work. What’s your poetry about?”

A stammer tripped out of my throat, my jaw quivering over the words I told everyone else. “You’ll see when I finish.”

His happiness was gone, the borders between us soaring back into place. “Oh, well, I’m sure it’ll be good. I mean, I haven’t read any of your stuff in a while. You haven’t shared.”

“I know,” I said. “But no one should see anything before the final draft. At first it’s all personal, then comes the refinement.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, putting his burger down. “And at what point today are you actually going to talk to me instead of preaching?”

“What?”

He took a deep breath, toying with the edge of his wrapper. “Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

“No, say what you want to say Jason.”

He sighed again, this time staring me straight in the eye. “You know, I really tried to be supportive of you being in school because I know it’s what you wanted. But lately you’ve been…different.”

I threw my fork down. “Oh Jesus. Please, don’t start with me on this too.” My eyes found their way to his, quivering under the fury that wrapped around my body.

“I’m just saying that you—.”

“That I what?” My voice was rising. “That I act better than everyone else and am condescending? Save it Jason. I’ve already got the whole song and dance from my parents.”

His words came out a whisper. “I didn’t mean like that.”

I crossed my arms and turned my body away.

“I mean, yeah, you have been acting kinda snotty, but I just meant…you aren’t acting like yourself.”

I took a minute to simmer down, my focus on the woman and her daughter that were trying their hardest not to stare at the scene we were making.

“For the first year, it was okay. You were a little different but you were still you. But since you’ve started hanging around those girls and those weirdo’s—.”

“Those ‘weirdo’s’ are my friends,” I said. “And I could easily same the same thing for yours.”

He gritted his teeth and continued, “See that’s my point. The old Samantha never would have said things like that about people she’s known her whole life.”

I turned my head back in his direction, my eyes gazing about his head instead of at it. “Like you said, things have changed. But so have I.”

“Oh don’t give me that bull,” For the first time today, his temper started to slip away from him. “I get it – you go to a school in a big city and you think you’re so much more evolved than the rest of us. But this isn’t you.” He threw his napkin on the table. “You have changed, but not for the better. Sure, you may be around smarter people and reading all these fancy books, but there’s no point in that if you turn into someone else.”

“I haven’t turned into someone else.”

“Please!” he said, and now people were staring. “Everything you say is just a repetition of what other people have told you. I haven’t heard one word of your own out of your mouth in the last year. You act so disinterested and above everything that you used to like. Jesus, you don’t even smile anymore.”

Tears brimmed my eyes before I could stop them. “I don’t think you came here to fight with me, Jay.”

He paused for a moment, before pushing his chair back and rising to his feet. “You’re right. I didn’t come here to talk. I came here to break up.”

Even the air held its breath. “Jason.”

He shoved his hands back into his pocket and looked down. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore.” He pushed the chair back into its place. “I gotta get back to work. Have fun at your writing thing.”

I didn’t come back into the present until long after he’d left, people around me still staring and the food sitting cold on the table in front of me. Sneakers squeaked on tile and doors opened and shut, but I couldn’t focus on any of that.

After a while, I couldn’t even be in there any longer because when the emotions hit me, I would start crying for. Leaving the trash on the table, I threw my notebook into my bag and charged for the door, hoping to catch the bus before it left back to the suburbs.

As I walked out the door, I saw the cashier from earlier by the door, cleaning the fingerprints off the window. I saw the embarrassment that he and everyone else in the restaurant harbored on my behalf, not knowing Jason and I’s story but taking my side by default because I was the girl who was dumped in a burger joint.

As I pushed the handle in, I offered a weak grin in his direction as I walked outside, praying that it wouldn’t die as I stepped into the sunlight. 

# # #

Anna Keeler is a poet and fiction writer attending Rollins College in Winter Park, FL. She is the assistant editor for The Chaotic Review, and was the 2016 recipient of the Arden Goettling Academy of American Poets Prize. Her work has been published or is upcoming on Poets.org, Indiana Voice Journal, The Merrimack Review, Cleaver Magazine, The Writing Disorder, Sick Lit Magazine, and more.