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The Red Restaurant

Working Past the Fear of Something New

By Allison Schafer Published 3 years ago 7 min read
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The Red Restaurant
Photo by Ed Leszczynskl on Unsplash

The restaurant was red.

The color of passion, joy, happiness, love and anger. Red was sticky, hot madness, the burning of two souls set aflame for one another, or a fiery wrath causing calamity through the veins. Red was the color of intense emotion deep within the soul.

Yet, as I stared at it, all I felt was an insurmountable blue. Trapped in an ocean as waves rolled over my head, threatening to drown me while I struggled to tread above the water.

I shouldn’t be standing here, on this bland, grey sidewalk, in front of this red restaurant where color bloomed and happy smiles lingered in every face. Not today. On this day that was so important to me and yet, here I was, trying to move past that dull ache that had been present in my chest for the past year.

I didn’t fit in with these people. Their happy smiles didn’t infect me with joy. Instead, they left me feeling hallow, like I was slowly being sucked dry until I was nothing but skin covering bones.

I should turn around, I should walk away and yet, I continued to stand there. My feet would not obey the command. Having a mind of their own, they led me forward, towards the front doors of the red restaurant. Taking a deep breath, I forced my frozen limbs to extend towards the door, willed my fingers around the handle and prayed my muscles worked well enough to open it. The movement was foreign, but I managed to walk into the restaurant. Stepping inside, I braced myself for the coming onslaught of voices, the cacophony sliced through my ears, making it hard to think.

Focus, I told myself. Taking another deep breath I plastered on a forced smile to the hostess. I’ve always hated large crowds. It was too many eyes, too many mixed emotions and colors I couldn’t make sense of. I’d had someone with me once, someone to help drown out all the noise, but he was gone as of a year ago, today. So now, I guessed I would have to get used to facing the crowds alone.

“ I have a reservation,” I said to the hostess. “ Under Barnes.” The woman took a moment to look over her screen.

She offered me a warm smile then said, “ Right this way.” Grabbing two menus she led me down a long stretch until she reached a two-seated table by the window. I stopped. Not this table. Why did it have to be this table out of every one in the restaurant?

I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t will myself to sit down. It just had to be this table. The woman was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. Soon, others would stare too and I would lose all my nerves to remain in this place. With trembling hands and legs, I forced my limbs into the correct position of sitting, feeling slightly detached from my body. The woman was gone a moment later, leaving me to my internal panic.

My eyes gazed out the window, catching on the yellow sign across the way. Accompanying the sign was the image of a sun. A year ago I would have smiled at the color, the bright happiness of it resonating in my heart. But now, it felt as if yellow burned as hot as the suns rays, scorching my skin until it was a deep red.

Turning away from the sign, my eyes found the seat across from me. Tears welled behind them as I imagined someone else sitting there, my brother. In my head he looked at me with his bright, lively, green eyes. Green that had once resembled life, growth, hope. But green had died, just as he had and left in its wake was the horrible grey of decay.

I wasn’t sure I could do this. When I had agreed to the date I thought it might be good for me to push myself back out into the world, to try something new since my brother always pushed me to do that when he was alive. But I didn’t think it would be in this spot. Our spot. The spot where my brother and I used to go to escape the world, to laugh at each others jokes, and eat our favorite dessert when the world felt black instead of white. Where we would stay up all night, helping each other with homework or discussing our favorite movies and TV shows, far away from the prying eyes of those who didn’t understand us in the mass of purple confusion.

My gaze shifted to the people around me. Happy couples and families surrounded me in a sea of red and pink. Their smiles brought on by happiness they couldn’t extend to me. Happiness I wished I could steal from them like a lover stealing a heart, quick, painless, and so fast it was almost unnoticed.

But I could do none of that. Emotions couldn’t be traded just as colors couldn’t be ignored. The color in the world stared at me, glaringly in my face, mocking me of everything that was taken from me a year ago, leaving in its wake a dulling grey.

Feeling a rising panic in my chest, I strained to get up, but before I could a man stood before me. My eyes locked onto his. They were blue, not a drowning, endless sea blue, but a light blue of serenity, like the open sky full of possibilities. And he held flowers, not red roses, but blue forget-me-nots to match those serene eyes of his.

“ Emery?” he asked.

“ Yes,” I said, managing to find my voice. “ Jace?”

He held out his hand plastering a warm smile on his face. “ It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Forcing a smile on my face I shook his hand and took the flowers. “ It's nice to finally meet you too. Thank you for the flowers. They are lovely,” I said. How did he know? Forget-me-nots were my favorite.

“ I’m glad you like them,” he said. “ I was going to go with roses but they are very…predictable. And these are my favorite.”

He sat down, taking the seat that used to be occupied by green eyes, now replaced by blue. I wasn’t sure I liked the change.

“ Sorry I’m late,” he amended. “ I had to make a stop before coming here.”

“ Where did you go?” I asked, truly curious what could have been so important before a date with a stranger.

He hesitated, a guarded look crossing his eyes. When he spoke next, I didn’t expect the words that came out of his mouth, “ I visited my mothers grave.”

I was struck with shock and grief, familiar with the pain that accompanied loss. I opened my mouth and the words tumbled out before I could stop them, “ I’ve lost someone too. I know the scar it leaves.” And the drab colors that paint your world, I didn’t say.

He offered me a small smile. “ Perhaps we can try and get through it together? Seek out the color in the world once more?” It was as if this handsome stranger read my mind. Did he see in dark colors too? Were all the bright ones sucked away from his eyes when his heart was torn from his chest just as mine was? Staring at him now, at the look in his eyes that mirrored my own, I had to believe that he and I were surprisingly the same.

“ I’d like that,” I admitted. Jace offered me a smile; relief etched into his features, as I’m sure the same was seen in mine.

The waitress came by holding a bottle of Merlot. “ As you requested,” she said to Jace, setting the bottle down on the table. Red, the color I couldn’t bare to look at, because it had been my brother’s favorite color. The color of his hair, the color he always wore and the color of his warm personality that had graced the world. But sitting across from someone who understood my pain, it was easier to bear.

Jace flashed me a warm smile as he poured us two glasses. The look eased the grief in my chest ever so slightly because his smile was genuine and understanding. I’d been searching the world for a year for someone who knew the pain I was feeling and I’d found one in the place I least expected, on a dating site, from a total stranger.

As I sat there, holding the glass of red Merlot in my hand, staring at the handsome stranger across from me, I thought maybe there was a little bit of white encompassing that grey, bringing life and color to my world once more.



dating
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About the Creator

Allison Schafer

Harry Potter/Marvel/Disney enthusiest. Cat lover. World traveler. Book lover. Alway baking. Hopeless Romantic.

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