"You're fired."
I looked up from the double espresso coffee I was making for the customer to find Lacy, the owner's daughter standing before me.
"Have a nice day!" I smiled at the customer after handing him his order.
"It's new year, Lacy. Not April fools day," I deadpanned.
"I'm not joking, kiddo. You are fired." She passed me an envelope.
"Why?" My head shot up in shock when I saw the envelope had a severance check inside it meaning she was indeed not joking.
"Uh-Its complicated." She scratched her head, trying to put together words.
"You can't fire me without a valid reason!" I protested. I never missed my shifts, always was on time and I treated the customers nicely. She can't just fire me out of the blue like this.
"I just did." She shrugged, not apologetic at all.
"I'm not moving until you give me a reason!" I didn't want to part with this job. I hadn't yet saved nearly enough to live separately after graduation.
"You offended a big shot. We can't let you work for us anymore." She said in all seriousness.
I offended a bigshot?
"A bigshot named Stephenzo Black, I assume?" I asked, my fists clenched by my side.
How could he?
How dare he?
"Well, he did ask me to be discreet about it." She shrugged, neither denying or agreeing to my claim.
"He's my brother, Lacy. You know he won't do anything!" Lacy already knew about it from my resume and Diego also frequented here a lot to annoy me during work.
"Sorry, honey. I can't risk offending him." She gave me a guilty smile.
"Go home. You don't have to work the rest of the shift." She added.
Is he really going to stoop this low as to blackmail my employer?
Was this supposed to be another of his lessons, too?
I went back home, the anger still coursing through my veins.
Don't fight him.
I will be on the losing end like every other time.
But when I saw him in the living room, watching a movie with everyone while stuffing popcorns in his mouth without even a speck of guilt in his eyes, I lost it.
"HOW DARE YOU FIRE ME FROM MY JOB?!" I screamed, turning the movie screen off.
"Hey, hey, cool down." Diego tried to pacify the situation in vain.
But the man in question, Stephen remained silent as if he couldn't even hear me scream.
"Are you really going to play clueless?!" I shouted, my tone lower than before.
"I thought we don't talk anymore." He shrugged, throwing my words back at me.
"You think you're so much better than everyone just because you have a little more money than them?" I scoffed at his nonchalant expression.
"I'm so fucking tired of your arrogance and your obsessive need to control every aspect of my life." I added.
"You would better watch that attitude around me, sweetheart." He warned. "I can do things much worse than making you jobless."
"I can't imagine anything worse than having you as my brother." I spat out.
"Is that so?" Stephen snickered. "Want me to help you broaden your imagination-"
YOU ARE READING
Rheostat
Teen Fiction"It's not what we are but what we do that defines us." Aylin Black has come to believe that she deserves all the misfortunes life throws at her. Yet she refuses to back down. At least not without a fight. But as her past comes knocking at her door s...
