AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In our town, if you don’t go to college, you most probably go here. You work on the cleaning staff or on the cooking staff or whatever staff you seem fit to work on.
My parents were the select few who had other jobs. My dad used to paint houses and my mom used to tutor kids sometimes.
College was never an option for me; I’m not into books and all. But neither was working at The Pleiades.
I wanted to travel the world like my mom used to say when I was little. I wanted to explore it and see what I liked. See where my passion was. I wanted to find myself.
Pity flashes through Maggie’s eyes and I look away. If I don’t, I might start crying and that’s the last thing I want tonight.
Tonight was about tit for tat. It was about the adventure, the rush of it all. Tonight was about feeling alive.
“You know, you don’t have to do this. This job. You could pack up right now and leave this town. Just like you planned. Just get in your car. The blue car that you love so much.” She smiles. “Take a road trip. Send me postcards. No one’s going to blame you, Cleo.”
Okay, first of all: I can’t just get in my car. I can’t.
I won’t.
My blue car that I used to love so much, the car that I spray-painted myself with my dad, scares me now. I can’t touch it. I won’t touch it. Because every time I do, I can’t sleep for days. I get nightmares. Sometimes I throw up, get dizzy, claustrophobic.
But I can’t tell her that. Because she’ll say the same thing that she’s been saying for the past year.
You need to see someone, Cleo. Talk to someone.
“I can’t,” I whisper, threading my fingers together. “I need this job. I need to get my house back.”
My old house. The house I grew up in.
The bank took it away last year because of my dad’s debts. After a lot of pleading, they gave me a second chance, along with a time limit to come up with the money. I only have about four more months to gather it and I need this job to get me there.
“Your parents wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”
“Well they’re not here, are they?”
I was trying to be snappish. But I guess, I sounded more… forlorn, like the orphan that I am.
Sighing, Maggie sits back. “Fine. I can’t make you do anything that you don’t want to do.”
My chest feels heavy but I still manage a trembling smile.
“But,” Maggie says, sternly. “I don’t want you inside the mansion after your shift’s over. Do you understand?”
I straighten my spine. “Yes.”
“No matter what happens. No matter how tempting it is to take revenge. You’re not a vigilante.”
“You mean like Wonder Woman?” I grin.
“It’s not funny.”
I shake my head seriously. “It’s not.”
Maggie nods in approval. “You will not set your foot inside this place if you’re not working. I don’t even want to think about what would’ve happened if someone else had found you loitering around instead of me. So no more nightly excursions.”
“Got it.”
Maggie looks me over. My navy blue lipstick, my blue hair and my black attire.
I’m used to such looks from people. Back on the south side, no one cared. But here, on the other side of town, people look at me with judgement. My blue, wavy, messy hair is the first indication that I’m not sophisticated enough. My navy blue lipstick means I don’t know a thing about fashion.
