Survival Of The Fittest

Paloma was trying to focus on what Lyra said, but Lori was being so loud. Lyra looked pretty uncomfortable with it, too, which just made it worse. Lyra hadn't even done anything wrong, Lori was just a brat. "You can just fudge it. Or give me a cheat sheet and I can keep the good parts." There sure was a lot of stuff here. Where did Lyra even read all this junk? Well, internet, natch.

Just as she was wondering why it was taking so long for their food, Paloma flinched slightly at Lori screaming about whatever, but Lyra basically flipped out. They spilled water all over themselves, which Paloma knew was a massive pain in the ass for anyone, ever. "Shit, here, here." Paloma shoved a handful of napkins into towards Lyra, trying to block the water from running off the table and onto their pants. She stood up and moved around the table to make sure Lyra's escaping beverage didn't get too far.

Once she was reasonably confident further mess was averted, Paloma turned her attention to the real source of the nuisance; Lori. "Seriously?" Paloma demanded across the room, shooting a glare along the way. "Shove it. Whatever you're doing, nobody cares!"

Lori was hurriedly scribbling when she heard her name shouted at her. The remaining half of a pencil in her hand snapped again into quarters. She whipped her head around in time for Paloma to screech at her. Lori's face twisted into anger. She probably would have thought a lot of very uncharitable things about Paloma and her treatment of her, but honestly, she did not have the time to formulate coherent sentiments. All she felt was a flash of gut wrenching anger and being kicked while she was down.

"No one cares about your doodles, you stuck up bitch," she blurted without a second thought.

This was quickly turning into the worst-case scenario on all fronts. There was still a shallow puddle on their side of the table, gently dripping onto the floor, although thankfully it seemed to have stopped spreading now. There was already a little pile of sodden napkins at the corner of the table, and Lyra frantically mopped up the spillage with a third, even as they tried to calm themselves down and stop splashing themselves with even more water.

It was a fruitless effort, really; they could see now the huge damp stain on their hoody, as well as several smaller splotches of water running down the leg of their jeans. Their heart sank right down into the sole of their shoes as they used a fourth napkin to soak up the last of the water on the table, as they realised they really were gonna have to take their hoody off.

Lyra unzipped it, wiggling out of it and draping it behind them over the back of their chair, immediately feeling their t-shirt clinging to their body, feeling far too large for such a small shirt, aware of how every movement they made caused the fabric to shift. Their heart, still firmly rooted to the bottom of their shoes, tightened, bombarded by the yelling match going on behind them and the burning in their cheeks, everyone in the restaurant surely staring now, looking at this pathetic sap, coated in water, big and clumsy and worthless.

They wanted to engage, to back up Paloma and let Lori know that she was being rude and noisy and causing trouble, but right now, they couldn’t convince themselves that they could say anything without messing it up and causing even more trouble. They were upset and frustrated and kinda wanted to just go home and curl up in bed right now, though, and they couldn’t stop themselves from venting some steam, just a little bit.

“Ugh. Shut up. Pot meet kettle,” Lyra mumbled to themselves, dabbing at the patches of water on their jeans with the last remaining dry napkin.

At least, they had intended to mumble, intended for the words to be heard by nobody but themselves. But as the words left their mouth, they turned much louder, much more audible in the restaurant which had gone unnervingly quiet at the worst possible moment. Lyra’s eyes went wide, and they stared down hard at their lap, hoping desperately that Lori somehow had missed their words.

Paloma, incidentally, had not heard what Lyra had said. Honestly, she had forgotten that Lyra was there. Her face had turned red and she stood up and walked angrily across the room. Along the way, without noticing, she'd grabbed the mostly-empty glass of water off of Lyra's side of the table.

"You think so?" She held up the glass of water and poured it right onto Lori's notebook. "Nobody cares about your-" she pauses, struggling, only briefly. "Stupid stock shit."

She noticed that the bartender was doing something, probably calling security or some shit. Paloma didn't care. She sat back down at the table with Lyra across from her and folded her hands in her lap, ankles crossed, staring forward past Lyra.

Lori gasped as Paloma poured water all over her work. What she'd written down so far would still be readable, if smudged, but she wouldn't be able to take further notes. That wasn't really what went immediately through her head though. She chucked her pencil at Paloma as if by reflex and stood up off the bar stool.

"You think you're better than everyone, don't you, princess!? Right!? Just because you've got your little sycophants to back you up?!" she shouted in the restaurant.

Lori's face was a splotchy beet red and her fists were clenched at her side.

"I'm Paloma and I look down on people that have to work for things because I'm a virulent cunt," she hissed. With that she took the tea pot the server had left her with, entirely full since she'd not had any, and threw all of its probably boiling contents on Paloma.

The pencil flew by Paloma's head without hitting her. Paloma didn't care. She sat and did not look at the other girl.

Lori stormed across the room shouting at her. Paloma didn't care about that either until Lori called her a cunt. As she turned to retaliate, though, a teapot full of liquid splattered across her torso, droplets landing on her face and running down into her pants. Paloma squealed in shock.

...Luckily, the water was tepid. Paloma stepped back, looked down at herself in shock. She was soaking wet and the tea would probably stain something, but she wasn't burned. Then, she looked back up at Lori. "You ugly bitch."

Lori was slightly taken aback that the tea had in fact not been boiling. She looked at the pot and then looked back at Paloma. It wasn't very good for the restaurant that they'd brought her lukewarm tea and if she'd drank it she probably would have been annoyed and demanded hot tea.

Paloma launched at her again with an insult. Lori's eyes welled with tears and she clenched her jaw and her fists, one still holding on to her now-damp hard work.

"Why isn't anything fair?!" she shrieked and threw the tea pot against the ground. "Even the tea!"

Lori launched forward and grabbed a handful of Paloma's voluminous hair, wrapping it around her strong grip.

"Looks can be bought and someday I can do that and more!" he hissed. She yanked Paloma closer to her. "What about you, huh?! You've got it made now, but you'll never beat me in the long run because you're not as motivated! NOBODY IS!"

((Kayla Harris temporarily joins the thread for one post))

It was fucking Christmas in March.

With the steadiest but shakiest hands she ever had, Kayla held her phone at a stealthy angle and recorded this beautiful beat down. However the hell this fight started didn't matter, but the hair pulling and the tea spilling and everything was perfect. It was beautiful cinnamon tography.

Kayla was lying if she wasn't taping this partially out of schadenfreude on that bitch Paloma's part. The bitch had it coming for years, and for it to come from Lori of all people was icing on the cake. As soon as Lori yelled randomly about people being dumbasses Kayla had her phone at the ready and documented the whole thing from her perfect viewing angle, taking care to not get Charelle or Lyra in the shot as best she could.

God, she was so giddy. She was completely absorbed into documenting this iconic moment in human history, letting her chicken lo main cool down and freeze over because this shit was too important to miss and had to be immortalized as an .mp4.

"Girl, this is going on fucking WorldStar," Kayla whispered to her compadre from another madre. Charelle seemed more focused on devouring her chicken tenders and fries from the kids' menu, but that was fine. The whole world was gonna see this when Kayla got home.

Tear that bitch apart, Lori.

This was now, officially, the worst-case scenario possible.

Lyra flinched as the tea coated Paloma, droplets splashing off of her and hitting them, immediately undoing the work they’d just done to dry off. They noticed it, eyes briefly flickering downwards to the patches of water now staining their legs, but barely took it into consideration, all of their senses focused on the slow-motion car crash that was happening right in front of them.

They shrank backwards in their chair, terrified that Lori was about to hurl the teapot itself at their table, but luckily, in a certain sense of the word, she just threw it onto the ground in her petulant tantrum. Or so Lyra presumed was the case. They hadn’t seen the catalyst that had caused her to hurl the tea, and they really, really didn’t care. They’d just wanted a nice meal out with their friend, and now they had been dragged into the middle of a scuffle that everybody in the restaurant was watching.

For a brief moment, they thought that everything would just fizzle out and they could get on with sinking into the earth and dying peacefully. A second later, Lori launched herself at Paloma, grabbing her hair, and Lyra shrieked in fear. Instinct finally took in, and they stood up, pushing their chair away and toppling it over backwards with a heavy thud. They’d failed at even attempting to be a mediator before, they could at least try and do something to stop there from being further violence.

“Stop it! Please!” Lyra yelled, running over to Lori and grabbing hold of her, trying to wrench her away from Paloma. “Just let go of her!”

While all of this was unfolding, the woman waiting on Paloma and Lyra's table had taken notice and fetched the manager. He now appeared at the tableside, red-faced.

"Miss! You two- three! Stop this immediately!" The manager stopped just short of intervening physically, instead waving his hands at the teens. "I'm going to have to ask all of you to leave the premises, or I'll have to call someone." He zeroed in on Lori, whom the waitress had deemed the instigator. "And you- don't come back again, or I will call the police. I won't have hooligans in my business. You're disturbing the customers."

While focused on Lori, Paloma, and Lyra, the manager took no notice of the patron filming the entire incident nearby.

Paloma didn't know what the fuck Lori was talking about, mostly because she was a little busy screaming and trying to get away from the crazy bitch grabbing her by the hair. Paloma had no idea how she was on the cheer team; Lori was like a fucking gorilla.

Thankfully, the manager arrived and broke it up, mainly by causing Lori's grip on Paloma's locks to loosen, allowing her to break free. She looked up at the man, a little frazzled but nonetheless grateful. "Yes sir, I'm very sorry." She nodded to Lyra, gathered her purse, and briskly walked out of the restaurant, suppressing a smirk that if nothing else, Lori was getting off worse for what she'd done.

Paloma brushed tufts of of hair away from her face and sighed. She still didn't get her food, and now she had nothing to do for her blog review. Maybe she'd just have Lyra come to her place and they'd make something. That might be more fun than like, having to deal with other people for a bit.

((Paloma Salt continued elsewhere))

Lyra tried to intervene but it produced a similar result as when children try to hang off the arm or leg of an adult while the adult continues moving. The manager came out, yelling at the whole dysfunctional crowd and demanding that not only Lori leave, but that she never come back. She let the clump of hair she was holding free out of shock.

"B-buh-but" she protested. "But she started it!" she yelled, pointing an accusing finger at Paloma. "It's her fault, doesn't that mean anything?"

No one in the restaurant was willing to vouch for her. No one said anything in her defense. Paloma left in silence with a shit-eating grin.

Lori's eyes started to well up but crying wasn't an option. She was wearing foundation from Sephora today! It would be like crying money off her face. She fanned her eyes briefly and turned quickly to leave the restaurant with her soggy notebook. She clenched her fists and kicked the wall of the restaurant on the way out.

((Lori Martin continued elsewhere))

Lyra didn’t say anything to the manager once he’d broken the fight up. They merely gave him, and the waitress who’d been serving their table, a small little nod, before scooting over to their chair and scooping up their hoody, wrapping it up on itself to make sure they weren’t holding any of the damp parts. They quickly checked on top of and underneath the table in case they’d dropped anything, then scampered out of the restaurant, keeping their head down and avoiding eye contact.

Well. This had turned thoroughly miserable in the blink of an eye. Lyra was torn between wanting to ruminate more on what had just happened, and wanting to forget it all and curl up at home under a blanket. Maybe they could message Zen and they could share funny cat videos for a few hours. Or they could work on writing up descriptions for the myths and legends for Paloma’s little bestiary project. Something. Anything that wasn’t standing around with a too-small t-shirt and a damp hoody and jeans and embarrassment staining their every step.

They didn’t even get to eat anything.

Lyra sighed, and trudged their way home.

((Lyra Doyle continued elsewhere))