She still cries. "When I was a little girl, there was a diner that looked exactly like the one we work at now. My parents went to go take me out to Arizona for a cruise ride on our way to L. A. with my bigger brother." "You had a bigger brother? How long have I known you for now? Like almost two years?" "Yeah I had a bigger brother. I was seven and he was nine. We always hung out with each other like we were the bestest friends and he never left my side. He always told me 'no matter where you are little sis I will always be in your heart because we may never be with each other but our minds are roots that will never detach from the dirt.'" "Wow, your brother sounded smart for his age." "He was a little nerd with knowledge but he was very bad at acting like a nerd. He would always stand up for himself when he got into fights and most of the time he would always start it. Just to see how big he was. He was always book smart. His grades were the best in school. It was his temper that slowed him down. Always getting in trouble by the teachers and tripping kids. He didn't care what anybody thought of him. He was him and he liked it. That's why I loved him so much because he had his own personality. I was never the bad one though. I always did my work and was on the best behavior. That's why he protects me so much and always told me to stand up for myself when It comes to a time like that." "Your brother was a huge part of your life then." "Yeah he was... anyways as I was saying from before, we were on our way to L. A. and we were coming from Texas. On our way there we stopped at a diner in Arizona and it was like a desert out there. Hotter than where we work. It was night time though and it was about eleven. Me and my brother woke up at the same time when our parents were pulling into a diner right on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We were exhausted. Our parents let us out of the car so we can grab some food from inside. My father told us that his father always took him to this diner when he was a little kid and that he always and only gets one meal from this place and that's a smiley face pancake. It had bananas for eyes and mouth and a strawberry for the nose and the pancake covered up the whole plate. He covered it with syrup and ate it all the time. When we walked in it was bright in there. The waitress introduced us to out tables and there were only three people that worked there." "Oh so this place is identical to where we work at huh? What is all diners only supposed to have two employees and a boss?" She laughed a little bit while sniffling her nose. " "Anyways the waitress knew my dad but she was old and had a blue skirt dress on with blue lipstck just living the life ya know? I remember her saying 'Pauly! So nice to see you dear! It's been a long time!' She had that New York accent and like she was Italian but she was very sweet. Well we went inside and ordered and of course me and my brother and my dad, let's just say all of us got a smiley face pancake. It was so good I devoured it in a minute." "Why do I have a feeling that something bad is about to happen in your story?" I didn't even realize she slowed down. She was doing 45 now. Her hands weren't so tight holding onto the steering wheel. "Yeah it does get bad... When we were finished eating my dad forgot his wallet in the car and asked my brother which his name was Carson by the way... Well he asked him to go get the wallet so he did. When he was outside none of us noticed how long he was gone for because we we're caught up in the conversation my dad and the waitress were having. It was about ten minutes since we finally realized that he was never back yet. So we went to go take a look outside and..." She started tearing up again and started to drive a little bit faster. I told her to slow down and she did. "I'm sorry... I did it again." "Roxy." She looked up at me with her blue eyes. "You want me to drive?" "Sure." To be continued