Deerhill

Chapter 2.5 - Helia

They finally reached the downtown diner, and it was hell for Drew to find parking. He managed, with little help from his boyfriend barking orders from the passengers seat, and they climbed out of the station wagon after Drew turned the ignition off. Helia shut her door excitedly, breakfast being her favorite meal of the day, and Leo gave her a sharp warning about slamming his door as the group went inside.

"So, Indigo," Drew said as they waited for a waitress to come up for air long enough to seat them, drawing her attention off of the busy cafe to him. "You from around here?"

"No," she said after a moment, almost as if the answer was difficult for her to settle on. "Arizona, originally. But we moved around a lot."

"Work?" Drew asked sympathetically, and Indigo looked away again.

"Something like that."

Drew turned towards Leo and Helia and mouthed 'tough crowd'. Helia gave him a gentle nudge as a reminder to be nice, but Leo was less formal and snorted back a laugh. Helia dug her elbow into his back a second time when a waitress came up and got them, and they followed her across the restaurant to a booth. Drew sat across from Leo and to Helia's right. Leo sat beside Indigo, to Indigo's left, which made her and Helia sit across from one another.

Helia offered Indigo a warm smile, all at once noticing her shockingly green eyes glittering under her otherwise dark complexion. Her skin was a shade too dark to be tan, and her hair- cut short and messy- hung straight and nearly black around her face. She was pretty, in a boy-ish kind of way, and the intensity in which Indigo was once again looking at her made little butterflies flutter in her stomach.

Indigo tried barely to mirror her smile, but the upwards tilt of the corners of her mouth didn't reach her eyes. She had a heavy face, but it was without sadness. She looked like one of those war paintings of soldiers, serious and still and focused. Maybe, Helia thought, she just wasn't very sociable. She came to the conclusion that she would warm up the longer she stayed around them.

"What's your favorite breakfast item?" Helia asked, and Leo gave a small huff above his own menu.

"Good luck."

"Leo, mean," Helia chided. "Everyone has a favorite breakfast item."

"I eat in a lot of diners," Indigo said, breaking her gaze from Helia to finally look down at her menu and take a drink of her coffee. Black, unlike the rest of them who had torn open anywhere between three to six little creamer cups each. "I like eggs. They're convenient, easy to make. Hard Boil them and you can make them last forever."

Leo gagged. "Hate eggs."

"Yea but you're a picky eater," Drew said, looking up from his menu at Leo. "It's all the weed you smoke. It's destroying your appetite."

"Ridiculous," Leo said with a wave of his hand. "Absolutely ridiculous."

Helia smiled to herself and skimmed over the menu. She knew that the three of them had known what they wanted before they'd even stepped through the door, but the charade of deciding was to make Indigo feel more comfortable. Just plain eggs were absolutely horrendous, however, so Leo slowly forced her to add more to her order.

By the time the waitress came back, they had ordered enough for a small army, and sat back with satisfied smiles to make light conversation until their food arrived. Indigo had shrunk into herself slightly with Leo's hounding to pick out more food, so the attention was shifted elsewhere. Unfortunately for Helia, it landed right on her.

"Helia, how's the aquarium?" Leo asked, coloring in a child's menu with the crayons he had swiped from the hostess stand when they'd come in.

"Good," she said. "How are the kids?”

"Oh they're fine, rowdy as always," he said. Leo worked at a summer camp for bright young kids with supernatural gifts and abilities. Some were monsters, some were just kids burdened by the gift of magic. His grandfather, Ash, ran the camp. Leo worked as a counselor, floating between activities for wherever needed him. According to Ash, Leo made quite the impression on the kids, and he collected gifts from them like baseball cards, each one set on display on a shelf or a desk or a windowsill of the house.

“Tough since summer started?” Drew asked, and Leo gave a heavy sigh. The camp was open year round, as a sort of a private boarding school. Helia wasn’t too familiar with the logistics of everything, but Leo didn’t get a summer break. Just shorter hours.”

“No, it’s been fine, I guess. The kids always get more chaotic in the summer time, especially since now is when parents visit.”

“What do you do for work?” Indigo asked curiously.

“I work for my grandpa’s summer camp,” Leo said casually. “He’s the head for a the camp.”

“Oh,” was all Indigo had to say about that.

“But I get my hours cut in the summer time,” Leo said. “So, less pay.”

"I got you babygirl, don't you worry about it," Drew joked and Leo kicked him under the table.

"If anyone's 'got me' financially, it's Helia," he said, and Helia felt her face burn a little.

That part wasn't far from the truth. Since her parents were military, they made a good amount of money, and sent a fair portion of it her way. In return, she played up the good girl act whenever need be. A fake smile around their awful friends twice a year at Christmas and the summer get-together was well worth having enough money for her and her friends to both own a house and eat well.

She worked, but it was more to pass the time, especially when school was out for summer. Work, surf, pick up trash on the beach, get cross faded with her friends. To any outsider, she was really living a good life. The recent awful transition to waking up naked in the forest once a month truly made her grateful for her easy day life.

"Yea, she's really pulling in the sand dollars from the aquarium," Drew said, and Helia sent him a look.

"A lot of that goes right into your pockets."

"And we love you for it," Leo said, shaping his hands into a heart over his chest. "Everyone wants a sugar mommy Helia. Hey, there's an idea. Just find a sugar baby."

"I don't want someone who's just going to leech off of me," Helia said after a moment, looking at the table as she dug her fingernail against a scratch in the cheap wood.

"Meaning she's still not biting," Drew said to Leo, his tone amused.

Leo leaned his head back and gave an exaggerated sigh. "Begging you to start dating again Helia, please. This sad girl act is f*****g killing me."

Helia shrugged, digging deeper at the scratch, keeping her eyes trained downward. They wanted her to be happy, and she knew that. But a relationship like the one they wanted her in would make a lot of things more difficult. It came from a good place, but there were just so many things that they couldn't understand that made her turn away from chasing it.

"You mean you're not with anyone?" Indigo asked, making Helia's heart jump in her chest. She looked up to meet her forest green eyes again, dark eyebrows pulled in confusion. "Sorry, I just.. Nevermind."

"By all means, share with the class," Drew said, interested in whatever it was she had picked up that they hadn't.

But Indigo looked away from them again, and Helia only felt like she could breathe when she realized that Indigo wasn't going to throw her under the bus.

"So what do you do for work, Drew?" Indigo asked him, turning her gaze over to him. "We have working with children, and a mermaid. I think I would actually give anything to hear you say you worked on a farm."

"No, but working a graveyard shift is close enough," Drew said with a laugh, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the booth. "I work at a gas station. Not very flashy, but it pays the bills."

"Gas station workers are the backbone of this country," Indigo said without any mocking. "Truly, I've had more than one cashier step in when they didn't need to, and it meant the difference between me seeing past the night or not. You have my respect."

"Wow," Drew said after a moment, not having expected that reaction at all. "Thank you? What kind of trouble were you getting into that a cashier had to save your life?"

Indigo just shrugged, as if what she'd said should have been enough information in and of itself. Their food came before the silence became awkward, and they split the meal up between all of them. Each of them would order something specific, and then they'd pass extra plates around to share a bit of everything. This seemed to surprise Indigo entirely, and Leo picked her plate up to include her in getting her share. For a split second Helia thought Indigo was going to stab Leo's hand with her fork when he reached for her plate, but realized what his plan was just a second before it was too late and drew her hand back again.

Leo was unaware and unbothered, shooting a fake argument with Drew while they fought over portions and whether or not Leo should be forced to take some of the eggs today to even things out. When he had entirely too much food piled onto Indigo's plate, he set it in front of her again and turned to make up his own plate.

Helia noticed the way that Indigo stared down at her food. The look on her face wasn't quite childlike excitement, but it wasn't devastation, either. It was an odd in-between that could only really be categorized as uncomfortable. Like she wasn't quite sure what to do. She was thin, but not in any way frail. Maybe malnourished not long ago, but her comment about the gas station cashiers drew Helia to the conclusion that she had been stealing to eat, not unable to eat at all. Still, she was staring at her food as if the thought of shoveling it into her mouth made her want to vomit.

"So, Indigo, how long have you been in town?" Helia asked, scooping her own fork into her food and bringing it into her mouth. Despite how rude it was, she continued speaking with her mouth full. "I haven't seen you at the bar before, that's where Leo said you met. Mentioned, anyway, that night. I was home sick, unfortunately."

"A few days," Indigo said, finally cutting into her food. Helia tried not to give a victory smile, but it tugged at her face anyway. "I'm living with my sister until I can figure something else out."

"That's right, Arizona," she said, remembering their earlier conversation. "Do you like it so far?"

"It rains a lot."

Helia couldn't help but laugh at that. "Yea it does, doesn't it? You'll get used to it. I'm from Hawaii, so I'm used to bright sunlight one moment, and then flash flood monsoons the next."

"Long way from home," Indigo commented, and Leo felt the need to pipe up.

"Helia's folks are red blooded military Americans," he said, his tone just as mocking as it usually was, and Helia gave Indigo a sheepish look.

"Dad's in the Navy," she confirmed, purposefully leaving out how high up he was in the ranks. "We were stationed there for a few years. He's in Australia right now. Mom's in D.C."

"You don't seem the conservative type," Indigo said, sizing Helia up again, and Helia quickly shook her head, holding her hands up.

"No, I'm not. I'm very much not," she gave a nervous giggle. "That's my parents. Not me."

"She's one of them damn queers," Drew said, which racked a laugh out of Leo.

"I take it they're not too happy about that," Indigo said, looking back down at her food, and Helia shrugged.

"They... pretend not to see it."

"I’m sorry," Indigo said genuinely, and Helia was grateful for the understanding.

“It’s okay,” Helia said with a shrug and turned back to her breakfast, hearing her friends change the topic into nonsensical chatter that she didn’t have to be a part of.