Here she was once again, helpless and frozen before Cam's desire, his demands. A very familiar feeling for her, one that long predated the lecherous attentions of this teenaged boy. Her sister called it her "retarded deer in the headlights" look, chided her for it, said it was embarrassing.

At least when the autopsy results came back for the baby her sister had stopped using the word "retarded." Then again, her sister also refused to call the baby a baby, and insisted on referring to her as "the fetus."

You win some, you mostly lose some, at least where her sister was concerned.

She was right though, her sister. It was embarrassing, the paralysis that overtook her mind and body whenever things took a complicated emotional turn. Sometimes it could be almost comical. Like when her fiancé had proposed to her one beautiful May afternoon, on a perfectly arched pedestrian bridge in Central Park. She had been watching, amused, as an elegant white swan angrily pursued another elegant white swan across the smooth surface of the pool beneath their feet, its trembling rage erupting into a flurry of unfurled wings and honking as it approached its victim. That was when he had gotten down on one knee next to her, and at first she had thought he was trying to get a closer look through the railing at the swan attack, and she had wondered at his dedicated interest in such a thing. Then she heard him proposing, and confusion had blurred her senses. Perhaps it was the sudden pounding of blood to her head that had muffled the sound of his words and had dimmed the brightness of the sunlight cascading down around them; perhaps it was something else. Whatever the reason she had said nothing, felt nothing, and had simply stared back down at him by way of reply. The seconds—it felt like minutes, but surely he would not have stayed kneeling and mute with such a question hanging in the air between them unanswered, unacknowledged, for minutes at a time—the seconds had ticked by in silence, until finally he had grabbed both her hands, squeezed them, and said her name three times, as though reciting an incantation. Anyway it had worked, and she had smiled, and then nodded, and the awkwardness of the moment had passed, and they never discussed its meaning or mentioned its occurrence all the times they had been called upon by friends and family to tell and retell and linger on the story of that day.

Other times, well, the freezing up only made bad things worse. Like when she had come home from the hospital after losing the baby, and had been unable to speak to her fiancé about it, or with anyone else for that matter. When anyone tried she felt her muscles seize up and her blood grow thick and slow, and though she felt the words well up within her gut she knew they would never fight their way up through her lungs, into her throat, and out into the world. And so her fiancé, who had lost the baby as well, their daughter, was left to mourn alone, at the side of a partner who had morphed into an unresponsive deaf-mute. It didn't matter how many times he said her name, or anything else for that matter. The spell remained unbroken.

"You need to talk to him Courtney," her sister had urged her on the phone the night of the hospital. "Don't do your deer in the headlights thing, don't you dare. Not this time."

But of course she had done just that. It wasn't like she had a choice in the matter.

So yes, it was a familiar place she found herself in, frozen and mute before the outspoken desire of this oversized man-child. Unable to think straight, unable to act.

The unbroken silence seemed to throb between them now, and she imagined the entire restaurant sensing its unsettling presence. If she could break it what would she say to him?

"Drink your coffee Miss Park, before it gets cold," he said at last.

As though he had flicked an invisible switch she came alive and, annoyed with herself for her obedience, lifted the cup to her lips and took a sip of it. Black and bitter, just like she hated it. She gasped at the taste, inhaled a drop into her air pipe, and erupted into a coughing fit.

"Oh shit," she wheezed, unable to stop coughing. He was at her side now, thumping her on the back with the palm of his hand.

"Atta girl, just take a deep breath," he murmured, then thwacked her one last time, hard.

"Ow!" she cried out. "That hurt!"

He settled back down across from her.

"You're not coughing anymore," he said, and smiled.

She hacked one more out to show him that he was wrong, then grabbed her glass of water and drank the whole thing in one go.

"You Miss Park are one thirsty woman," Cam said. "How many shots did you do back there?"

"Alright Cameron, give it a rest, will you," she said after plunking down the glass and heaving a sigh of relief. She continued to avoid his gaze.

"Eggs, bacon, and a short stack of flapjacks for you Miss Park," Madysen chirruped as she set down three plates of food before her. "I hope you're hungry!"

Before she could reply, though, Madysen was gone again, leaving behind a mountain of food and a whiff of cheap perfume, the kind that made her nose itch.

She began sneezing.

"Oh for fuck's sake," she said, wiping at her nose. What other bodily processes were left to showcase before Cam and his father? As soon as she thought it she felt herself blush.

"Eat your eggs Miss Park," Cam said. She gave him a quick glance but he was being serious.

"You need to get some food in your system," he added. "I doubt you've eaten much today except that soup my dad made you."

She wanted to argue, but couldn't think of what to object to. So she ate her eggs, which were soft and buttery and smelled extremely delicious. As she did he poured a thin spiral of syrup onto her pancakes—flapjacks as they called them here—and began to cut them up into neat, bite-sized chunks. His forearm swelled with muscle, his fingers long and strong.

"Okay, I get it, enough already," she groused through a mouthful of bacon. "I can cut my own pancakes, I am not that drunk."

"I know," he said, but didn't stop cutting.

Suddenly she wanted to ask him about his sister, what had happened to her, why his father had been so unwilling to discuss her. Maybe this was something Cam had done for his sister. Maybe she had been a hopeless alcoholic, and now that she was gone (lost? dead?) Cam and his father were looking for someone else to take care of.

Then again, Cam had also made clear that he wanted her. Had wanted her for quite some time now. Maybe he just got off on turning the tables on his English teacher. She couldn't remember if she had been a bitch to him in class or not. Sometimes, on one of her bad days, she could be a real bitch to a student if they were too slow in responding, or had clearly not done any of the homework or reading she had assigned them. It was so easy to talk down to them, these slow-talking, small town teenagers who excelled at sounding dim witted, even if they weren't. But all she could remember about Cam was the way he would crack quiet comments in the back and make the others sitting around him snort in laughter. She was pretty sure she had simply left him and those other boys alone. If she was really honest with herself they had intimidated her. Well, Cam specifically, sitting in the middle of them, detached and uninterested in what she had to offer her students. He had always seemed a bit older to her, a little more sure of himself than was warranted.

She felt a surge of energy and good cheer as her blood sugar levels went back to normal.

"Cam how old are you?" she said, finally voicing a question that had been burning at the tip of her tongue for awhile now.

"I'll be 20 in the Fall," he said. "I got held back a year when I was a kid."

"Oh," she said, relief flooding her to learn that he was at least technically legal. She had been anxiously turning the question over and over in her mind ever since he had—since she had let him kiss her in her kitchen. She began eagerly digging into her pancakes.

"And what's your plan again?" she said. "You're going to night school to get certified in air conditioning repair, right? Will you stay here and work with your dad?"

It felt good to ask him the kind of questions a former teacher would ask her student. She was a concerned adult, interested in his future, ready to listen to his plans.

"Sure Miss Park, something like that," he said. Then he leaned back and nodded, presumably at Madysen, who reappeared at their table immediately, as though she had been waiting in the wings the whole time, ready to swoop in at a moment's notice.

"Here you go," Madysen said, placing the check squarely before Cam. "You can pay at the front. Hope y'all have a good night!"

She smiled brightly at them both and then hurried off before they could reply. Cam had already grabbed the check and was getting his wallet out.

"I'm still eating," she protested, her mouth now full of pancake.

"Finish up Miss Park, you don't want to eat too much at once and get sick again," he said, standing up. "And you should probably hit the bathroom before we go."

She almost choked again, this time on the way he had spoken to her. Then she shrugged to herself and kept chewing. He was right, she did have to go pee. Pretty badly at that. Besides, after the day she'd had she probably just seemed really enfeebled to him. Maybe he only wanted to make sure he got her home safe and sound after promising as much to his father and to Madysen's mom.

Suddenly it felt like the whole town was in cahoots to keep her on the straight and narrow. Or at least healthy. Maybe they were worried about having to hire another English teacher for the high school. She was pretty sure she had been one of only a few applicants for the job.

When she came out of the bathroom Cam was nowhere to be seen. The sour old hostess and Madysen stood at either end of the pie counter, frowning into the distance like a pair of guardian lions. Or gargoyles. Neither smiled or said a word as she exited Denny's and she could feel their small country eyes boring through the back of her skull.