Sweet Poison

03

Dylan Bryes

Assorting the delicate china glasses back in their rightful spot underneath the till, the scent of warmed butter bagels sticks to my white apron.

This was my life.

For 6 days a week, I scrubbed tables, counted change, wobbled cups of tea with burned fingertips as I ran through the tables that crowded the entirety of this small little bakery.

Mr and Mrs Martinez hired me a couple months back, around the time I moved here with Leah and I couldn't be more thankful for them.

My job has it's quirks when it comes to customers, but for the most part I loved it. I enjoyed the smiles on peoples faces when they bit into the buttery goodness or sipped on the fresh hot Indian Tea I got the store to add onto the menu. It started off with me bringing small flasks filled with the hot liquid, to me making it everyday at 6am straight.

The early morning starts were probably what killed me most, the bakery was small but it too attracted a lot of tourists when it's sign held a most popular reference 'Homemade bagels since the 1950s'.

People would fleet in and out of this place like hover flies as I continued my shift wiping down tables as the evening crept through.

I do love this place with my whole heart, but it's definitely a secondary job to the career I choose for myself. I don't necessarily want to be smelling of bagels everyday and I think Angela has picked up on this too when I get caught hitting the tiny wooden stick mixers onto the metal pots we use to brew fresh coffee in the ounce of spare time I have during these long shifts. Drumming habits.

I can't seem to stop the annoying habit as it's the only thing I look forward to at the end of my day. It's gotten ridiculously hard to contain my passion at work now.

I finished my A levels back in England seen as education is compulsory until the age of 18, just scraping the grades I needed to get into what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life. I've applied to three music colleges in the past three weeks and my nerves are eating away at my hope to actually make it into one of them.

My dreams are quite literally dangling in the hands of experienced musicians who want someone who's willing to comply their entire life's being to the sound of music. Sounds perfect to me.

That is why I choose to spend my time here, hustling money as quickly as I can to afford a dormitory whilst Leah is away touring the world with a band. She hasn't told me much of who they are yet, but I think she just doesn't want to face the fact that she's leaving for 8 months and I won't be with her.

All I can do is sit and wait, and that's exactly what I intend on doing until I hear back from someone, anyone really. I need to get into one of these colleges or I don't know what I'll do, I haven't planned for anything else but this.

I just need to do this right, I want to be able to say to my mum back at home that I made it. That's all she's ever wanted for me and I really want to make her proud.  

Her raising me on her own wasn't easy either, I want to make it up to her, I need to.

I watch outside the window as the sky turns into a musky orange colour, far different from when I arrived here in the morning.

It's been three days since the...incident and I still haven't completely wrapped my head around it. I know I've never seen Harry before, I would've recognised those eyes a mile off if I had.

Withdrawals are hitting me hard and I don't completely know how to make sense of the situation.

It's hard to explain the difference between Harry and Zayn but they seem to know each other well from looks of it. Zayn didn't mind telling Harry to 'chill out' and in all honesty I'm mostly stunned at how Harry seemed to oblige, only if it was for a second.