The jingle on the door chimed at exactly 8 p.m. letting them know he was there. He slid into the all-too-familiar red booth set in the middle of the dining room. He took out his journal and began to scribble on it while observing her from the corner of his eye. He watched her retro dress sway as she moved from table to table cleaning up and finally disappearing through the kitchen doors to place his order.

As he sketched down the features of her face on his journal, he began to recall how he came to wait on her every evening at the same hour. He had first caught a glimpse of her freckled-covered face as he took a beating from her then current boyfriend. Her small mouth formed an ‘o’ shape as her forehead crinkled to the scene before her. Maybe it was the force of the punch or the way her eyes shone that made him choke on the last gust of air leaving his body. But, from then on he knew that she was the one, so it became his mission to let her know. He kept on visiting the diner she worked at. She began to notice his regular attendance at the diner and began to make small talk with him. Small talk led to more elaborate conversations and that spun off to where they were now, finishing college looking forward to their future.

She set down his order in front of him, chili cheese fries, Pat’s double stack burger, and what the locals called a SOS milkshake which was a mixture of Oreo and strawberry. She smiled down at him and shook her head at his choices. If he ate what he ordered every night, she would watch him die young from a heart attack, but she knew what he did with his food. She had followed him once when they were younger, wondering what he did every night with the to-go boxes. She watched him offer his food to different homeless people each night. Now she smiled as she clutched his warm hand to give the plates away,

As she set his food down, he stole a glance at her smile and covered the sketch he was working on. He never grew tired of drawing her, discovering new things that stood out. It was different tonight though. He could feel the nerves shoot through his body making his hands tremble slightly.

After closing time they headed out, they walked closely together trying to numb the feeling of the sharp cold wind biting their bodies. He held a to-go box on his left hand as she clung to a plastic bag that held the others. As they neared the street crossing, he withdrew himself from her embrace and knelt in front of her with the to-go box in his hands. He began to chuckle at how silly he might’ve looked to others holding a to-go box while kneeling, yet he could see from the tears making her eyes glisten that she understood everything that was important to him.