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“Can I sit inside your car?”
“Go ahead.”
He reaches inside my car and pulls the button up to unlock it. Then he slips inside, getting water all over my seat. After he rolls the window up, he turns to face me and sighs. “I’m going to have to let you go, Emerald.”
“What?”
“I was running the numbers yesterday. You logged five hundred orders of coffee last week, but the amount of receipts don’t reflect that...I did some investigating and found that you were letting forty percent of the patrons get their coffee for free.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
He clears his throat, clearly taken aback by my language. “You also told ten different customers to ‘fix it your fucking self’ when they asked you to remake their coffee. That’s against company policy. Now,” he says as he shifts in the seat, “I’m really good friends with your grandmother so I won’t tell her about this if you won’t. I’ll put in a good word for you at the soup kitchen or something and tell her you decided to go the volunteer route, or—”
“Get the fuck out of my car. Now.”
“Emerald...” He sighs and places his fat hand over mine. “It’s not personal, but we do sell coffee and expect good customer service for a reason. I need someone who is going to—”
“Do you think this is the first job I’ve been fired from?” I yank my hand away from his grasp. “It’s not, so you can save me your shitty pep talk. It’s not personal,” I mock him, “but you could’ve told me this shit over the phone and I could’ve saved my goddamn gas. Out.”
He shakes his head, whispering something that sounds like “I’ll pray for you” and steps out of my car.
I shut my eyes and grip the steering wheel once he slams the door shut.
I should’ve known this would happen. I should’ve fucking known...
I slam my car in reverse and swerve around, speeding out of the parking lot. I’ve done well over the past couple weeks—dealing with the annoying AA meetings, the invasive urine tests, and that dreadful, confined bistro, but this shit calls for a relapse.
I need alcohol.
Now.
Speeding, I drive to a small liquor store on the outskirts of town. I buy two pints of vodka, a six pack of beer, and a pack of cigarettes. I place everything in my purse and rush home, locking myself in my room.
I force the huge bay windows open and toss one of my legs over the edge—straddling the sill. Ignoring the wind and the rain, I unscrew the top of the vodka and take a long, sweet swig.
I’m never getting out of here...
I take swig after swig until my throat burns, until my thoughts become blurry, and a memory I’ve been trying to suppress all week forces its way across my mind...
“Em?” Leah steps into my room and hits the light.
“Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you go to school today?”
“Like you really care...” I mutter and roll over on my bed, hiding my tears.
“Of course I don’t care whether you go to school or not.” She caresses my shoulder. “I do care when you miss the writing competition you’ve been telling me about for MONTHS—when your teacher calls me and tells me you didn’t show up to present your paper....What the hell is wrong with you?”
I’m silent. That paper is the last thing on my mind, and if I could somehow vanish from the face of the earth at this moment, nothing would make me happier.
“Em...Talk to me...” She presses.
I shake my head and feel her pulling my arm—turning me over. When I’m facing her, I feel her wiping my tears away with her fingertips.
She looks into my eyes and I know she knows what’s wrong. I can see the exact moment that it registers in her mind.
“Give me one second, Em.” She stands up and walks out of my room. She returns seconds later with a bottle of alcohol, two glasses, and a half-used pack of Marlboros.
She urges me to sit up and pours me a glass. “Tell me what happened...”
“You know how you said your first time was slow and passionate?”
She nods and motions for me to toss the drink back.
“It wasn’t like that for me...”
“Did you tell him to stop?”
I shake my head. “I wanted to do it...Two dates was long enough to make him wait, right?”
“Right.”
“I feel like he was just...” Images of him, my first boyfriend Sean, laying me across the bleachers after the game force tears to fall down my eyes. “He was really rough and he um...He said his ex-girlfriend’s name when he came...He said her name twice.”
“Oh, Em...”
