Page 1 of Rough Daddy
One
Tessa
We should be filming this.
Or at least snapping selfies and posting with #dinerlife, #influencermeetup, #itgirls.
With the headline, “They say rock bottom has a trap door.Immabouttofindout.”
I lie my head back on the sticky vinyl of the booth. Diners are supposed to be charming and low-end chic, but this one just smells like Lysol and rancid oil.
I only half listen to my friends’ conversation over bad coffee and worse food as my temples pound and my anxiety whispers in my ear that the sky is absolutely falling, and its destination is the top of my head.
My phone sits on the booth seat next to my left thigh. It lights up with another text from Ethan, my fifteen-year-old brother I left at home. I squeeze the button on the side, darkening the screen.
Guilt makes the sad breakfast in front of me impossible to eat.
But this is an adventure I need to take on my own.
Out the grease-smudged window of The Last Stop diner sits my white Tesla Model S. I’d say it looks out of place, but next to Marla’s rented Mercedes, Kit’s blacked-out Denali and Eliana’s shiny new Porsche, it fits right in.
A testament to the power of social media and the wild truth of just how rich, and screwed up, it can make you before the age of eighteen.
And after.
Inside my trunk is my entire set of Louis luggage, stacked on top of at least three black garbage bags full of shoes that probably outvalue the car.
Yesterday, after reading the email threatening to bludgeon me with a claw hammer, then the next one that offered me explicit advice on just how to stop my heart with a few household chemicals and pain relievers, I finally snapped.
The crack had been forming for a year, especially with my dad’s temper making me flinch every time he punched a wall or stomped on one of my intricately glued-together scale-engine models, wondering if one of these days it might be me he decides to break. But once the fault line split, so did I.
By two a.m., I’d chosen a destination that seemed as far away from my current life as I could get, and yet wouldn’t entail a drive more than a few hours from civilization, because my anxiety is constantly telling me I’ll surely be lost with no phone sig and a very large, expensive white paperweight on the side of the road.
Marla's voice cuts through the fog. Sitting with the only people in my life who understand how it was all unraveling makes up for the shitty food.
"Wildfire?” Marla holds her half-eaten double cheeseburger in both hands, grease, condiments and pickle juice dripping off the wilted lettuce onto the white porcelain plate. “Surely someone with your IQ could pick somewhere that at least sounds like a real place, instead of a sound effect?"
Her face is selfie-ready, as always. Lashes heavy, lips too red this early.
She looks like she's heading to a red carpet, not a back road diner with a hand written ‘Cash Prefer’d’ sign taped to the front door. But that's Marla. Always ready. Always curated.
She was America's YouTube sweetheart by the age of twelve. Now she can't go to a grocery store without someone calling her a bitch on TikTok.
But unlike me, she’s a duck. All the shit just rolls off her back, turning to gold in her bank account.
"It’s anowhere, which is exactly where I want to be right now," I say, rolling the warm coffee mug between my palms.
Kit reaches across the sticky table and squeezes my wrist. She's the only one of us who got out clean. From pigtails and brand endorsements to kindergarten teacher. Long skirts. Bare nails. Mom to Mom sales on Sunday.
"You don't have to disappear." She tries to look encouraging. "Not all the way."
"I'm not disappearing," I lie. "Just... pausing."
Eliana snorts. She hasn't emerged from her black hoodie since she got out of her car. "Pause? Girl, you deleted every account you've ever had. That's not a pause. That's a funeral."
She's not wrong.
I push my plate away, a wilted egg white omelet growing cold beside a lemon wedge and a sad sprig of parsley. No cheese, no toast. The kind of meal you order when you want to look like you're in control of your life, even if you can't remember the last time you chewed without guilt.
