In the fall of 1993, if you drove down Fordham Boulevard just past midnight, you’d probably see the same thing every Saturday: the glow of the Waffle House sign cutting through the dark like a fluorescent moon, and a mismatched group of teenagers squeezed into the back booth, laughing like the world wasn’t waiting to end on Monday morning.

They called themselves “The Waffle House Club,” which wasn’t original, but it felt sacred to them. The members were five seniors from Chapel Hill High School, bound together by boredom, broken curfews, and a shared resentment for how small their big college town could feel when you weren’t old enough to vote. There was Kenny Bowers—quiet but brilliant, the kind of kid who took apart radios for fun. Rochelle Bennett—artistic, dramatic, already wearing thrifted prom dresses to school “just because.” Dex and Erin—twins, polar opposites, Dex obsessed with conspiracy theories and Erin constantly rolling her eyes at him. And finally, there was Tamara Long.

Tamara was the heartbeat of the group. She wore combat boots in the summer, dyed her hair with Kool-Aid, and once got suspended for writing Don’t trust a system that sells you futures at 18 on the back of her English test. No one quite knew why the group gravitated around her—maybe it was her fearlessness, or the way she could talk about anything from Nirvana lyrics to South African apartheid without sounding like she was showing off. She made you feel like your opinion mattered, even if you weren’t sure what it was yet.

The tradition started by accident. One night after a school dance they didn’t actually go to, they ended up at the Waffle House, sitting there for hours, trading stories and french fries. Rochelle brought a composition book she labeled Official Minutes of the Waffle House Club, and from then on, every meeting got a title: The Night Dex Got Dumped and Didn’t Cry, Rochelle’s Syrup Rant, Tamara Breaks the Universe (Again).

But that winter, Tamara started disappearing.

At first, it was just missed hangouts, vague excuses—“family stuff,” “migraine,” “I’ll catch the next one.” Then came the night of Meeting #19: No Tamara, No Coffee Refill, when Rochelle closed the book quietly and said, “Something’s wrong.” No one wanted to say it, but they all felt it. The glue was peeling.

In early March, Kenny finally cornered her behind the bleachers at a soccer game and asked her straight up. She stared at him, eyes rimmed red. “My dad lost his job. We’re moving. Greensboro. End of the month.” And then, after a pause, “I didn’t know how to say goodbye without ruining it.”

Their last meeting happened on March 25. They showed up at the booth with homemade t-shirts (Rochelle’s idea), each one with a favorite quote from Tamara scrawled in permanent marker. Dex brought a mixtape titled Soundtrack for a Night That Never Ends. Tamara didn’t cry. She grinned, clinked her mug of black coffee against theirs, and said, “Let’s not remember this as the end. Let’s call it… Chapter Break.” Rochelle nodded and wrote it down in the book.

Years later, the Waffle House Club still existed—sort of. They’d drifted, like everyone does, but every now and then, one of them would make the trip back to Chapel Hill, slide into that back booth, and find something waiting. Sometimes it was a napkin with lyrics scribbled in Sharpie. Sometimes a new page in the composition book. Sometimes just a worn cassette marked “Play When the World Feels Too Loud.”

And always, always, the same quote written on the back page:
“Chapter breaks aren’t endings. They’re just where you take a breath.”
—T.L., 1993