Rocketship

Chapter Two: on second thought...

Marci's POV:

I climbed into my car after a 12-hour shift at Fat Stanley's Diner, depressed and smelling of fry-grease, pancakes, coffee, and table cleaner. My feet screamed at me to rid them of their blister-causing prisons, the English language referred to as shoes — at Fat Stanley's Diner all waitresses were required to wear the most uncomfortable flats imaginable with our uniforms. My boss, Barney, was a sadistic misogynist that seemed to feed off our (the waitresses) pain. And if the uniforms weren't enough to make me want to end it all, Barney took half of all my tips too.

"Back so soon?" The amount of anger that swelled inside of me when Barney said those three little words to me the moment I walked into that crappy diner again to apply for a job was unmatched. Those were fighting words if I didn't know any better. Although I had only been working back at Stanley's for a week, I already felt like quitting. The thought of serving another obnoxious group of touchy, drunk frat-boys made me want to disintegrate into a pile of dust and get blown away by the wind.

I took off my shoes, slipped a Mazzy Star cassette into my car's cassette player and started to cry. I cried a lot these days — I cried a lot in general — I was the kind of person that was moved to tears by seemingly every movie they'd ever seen, and it had been a long running joke between Stephan and I.

I wiped my tears and the mascara streaks on my cheeks. Just until I get a real job, I reminded myself.

♡︎♡︎♡︎

"It looks like somebody has a case of the working girl blues," Drew quipped as I walked through the door of our apartment. She was working on what appeared to be an abstract painting in the middle of our living room.

"Haha, very funny." My face was devoid of any expression, and my voice was completely flat. Coming from her, that comment struck a nerve — she got to stay home all day and pour paint on a canvas while her Daddy paid her rent.

"Is Marci home?" Heidi asked from the kitchen.

"No," Drew sarcastically answered.

Boy, that girl is a real card.

"Ignore Drew - I'm home." I walked into the kitchen to find a glorious box of pizza sitting on the counter.

"I got pizza," Heidi sang. "Help yourself, babe." I felt like crying again, but this time with tears of joy.

"Where's Carrie?" I asked, stacking a few slices of pizza onto a plate.

"She's spending the night at Gwen's place tonight."

Cute.

Gwen was Carrie's girlfriend. They had been dating for about a year and were the cutest couple I'd ever met — they truly seemed in love. Their relationship looked very different from Stephan and I's relationship. Stephan and I had been going steady for almost three years, and I loved him, or at least I thought I loved him until I saw Carrie and Gwen together for the first time.

Stephan. I didn't even know where to start with Stephan — we met at a party our sophomore year of college, he was conventionally attractive (nice hair, strong jaw, hot body), he was my first long term boyfriend, we had fun together, he said he loved me, but he was also incredibly annoying (honestly, I'm pretty sure he thought I was annoying too). We had been together for so long, that we both just kind of got comfortable with each other and fell into a rut of complacency. I didn't know if I was just over thinking our relationship the way I over-thought everything else, but I wasn't sure if that was the kind of relationship I wanted.