🔴 THE COFFEE TASTED LIKE CIGARETTES, AND HE CALLED ME “MOMMY”
I swear I almost choked when he said it, staring at me with those too-wide, too-blue eyes.
My skin prickled, the air in the diner suddenly thick with the cloying sweetness of cheap perfume and a greasy, metallic smell from the grill. He squeezed my hand, and it was then I noticed the faint tremor in his fingers, the almost manic energy radiating off him like heat. “Mommy, are you going to eat your eggs?”
He’s my son’s age, maybe a year younger, a lost puppy with a bad dye job and a desperate need for something I clearly wasn’t. This can’t be happening; I haven’t even dated since the divorce. “I… I need to use the restroom,” I stuttered, pushing myself away from the sticky, red vinyl booth.
I splashed cold water on my face, trying to scrub away the bewildered fear that clung to me. It’s like some horrible, twisted roleplay fantasy I didn’t sign up for, and he keeps staring at me like I should just know what is happening.
My phone buzzed in my pocket: “Where r u? I have a surprise!”
👇 Full story continued in the comments…
The text message was from an unknown number, but I knew, with a chilling certainty, that it was him. *A surprise?* The thought sent another wave of nausea through me. Whatever twisted fantasy this was, he seemed determined to see it through. I couldn’t go back to that booth, couldn’t sit across from him, pretending this was a date while he called me “Mommy” and waited for some terrifying “surprise.”
My reflection in the streaked mirror looked wild-eyed, a stranger staring back. I had to get out of here. Not back to the table, but out the door, into the street, anywhere but here.
Taking a shaky breath, I eased the restroom door open, peering out into the diner. The clatter of plates, the hiss of the grill, the low murmur of conversations – it all seemed distorted, happening in another dimension. My eyes scanned the booths, the counter. He wasn’t sitting there.
Panic flared, sharp and hot. Where was he?
Then I saw him. Standing near the aisle, not far from the restrooms, facing away from the main entrance. He was holding something small and dirty in his hands, turning it over and over. He looked like a child waiting for attention.
He must have sensed me, because he turned around, that same unsettling, wide-eyed gaze fixing on me. A smile, too big and too eager, spread across his face.
“There you are, Mommy! I was looking for you,” he said, his voice cutting through the diner noise with unsettling clarity. He took a step towards me, holding up the object. It was a grubby, worn-out teddy bear missing an eye.
“Look! I found him. Remember Beary? You said you’d keep him safe for me.”
My blood ran cold. This wasn’t just a bizarre pick-up line or a prank; this was a full-blown, terrifying delusion. He wasn’t seeing me; he was seeing someone else, someone from a deeply troubled past.
“I… I am not your mother,” I managed, my voice trembling but firm. “I don’t know you. I have never seen that bear before.”
His smile faltered. The blue eyes narrowed, losing their childlike innocence, replaced by a flash of confusion, then something dark and hurt. “No! Don’t say that! You *are* Mommy! Why are you lying? You left us! You left Beary!”
He lunged forward slightly, not reaching for me, but thrusting the bear towards me as if I should take it.
It was the opening I needed. Pushing past his outstretched arm, ignoring the strange, choked sound he made, I didn’t stop to grab my purse from the table. I bolted. Straight through the diner, past surprised faces, past the counter where the cook looked up, towards the blessed light of the exit sign.
The bell above the door jangled violently as I burst outside, gulping in the crisp, clean air. I didn’t look back. I just ran, the image of his too-wide eyes and the grubby teddy bear burned into my mind, leaving the cloying sweetness and the metallic smell, and the man who called me “Mommy,” behind in the dim light of the diner.