One White Dark Night

By Lauren Thell

His face looks like he just lost a prizefighting champsionship match. His clothes are caked with snow like he walked a mile in the blizzard. And Raine isn't convinced he doesn't have plans to rob her before the night is over. But he's here at her grandparents' diner—her only refuge from the cruel world—and she has no choice but to serve him with a smile and a prayer that this angry teen will move on when he's done. 

 

Hopefully he doesn't notice her strange hands first.

 

A YA Christian fiction short story. Approx. 27 pages.

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lauren Thell
• Release date: Oct 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215871829

Lauren Thell

Lauren Thell is an author of Christian YA fiction full of characters who find themselves on the undersides of impossible situations. She is a professional musician, an amateur dancer, and a wannabe astronaut.

Book preview

A White Night

Raine stood at the counter of the diner, staring out the window with glazed eyes as she rolled silverware in paper napkins. Beneath the streetlight, the snow flapped like a sheet, twisting in the vicious wind, rising upward, then falling again. In the last two hours, she’d had exactly one customer, an elderly gentleman who lived in the complex behind the diner and came every evening for supper no matter the weather. No one else wanted to brave the blizzard. Even Raine dreaded the two-block walk back to her own home after closing.

The bell above the door jingled, its cheerful sound so unexpected in the dull quiet of the little restaurant that Raine jumped. Her face brightened. Finally, a customer. She spun around to greet her latest patron—and her smile crashed to the floor.

In the doorway stood a boy about her age—sixteen, seventeen at most. Snow plastered his coat and stocking cap like a thick layer of frosting, bringing Raine to the conclusion he’d just walked a long way. That wasn’t what alarmed her, however. Swollen, reddish-purple bruises covered much of his face, making him look like the losing end of a recent prize-fighting championship match. Or the victim of a vicious gang-related mugging. He looked her over with searing hostility.

If trouble had a face, this was it.

Raine nervously smoothed the front of her apron, then curled her fingers into thin fists. Hi. Are you, um, here to eat?

The boy cocked his head. Is there another reason I would be here? His dark tone took the joke right out of his words. Raine wasn’t convinced he didn’t hide a gun in his coat, and that he wouldn’t eventually use it on her. She cast a furtive glance toward the kitchen. Her cousin Tony’s massive frame filled the window above the counter as he washed dishes, bringing a weak measure of comfort.

She pasted on a smile and grabbed a menu. Take a seat anywhere you’d like. We’re wide-open tonight. She gestured over the space. Perhaps he’d be less grumpy once he had food in his stomach.

The angry-looking young man slumped onto a stool at the front counter, right next to where Raine had been rolling napkins, and pulled his hat off. Snow plopped to the floor and thick,