★彡ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴅᴏᴡɴ | ᴘᴀᴜʟ ᴍᴄᴄᴀʀᴛɴᴇʏ彡★ ✅

★彡[ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 10]彡★

★彡[ᴛᴡᴏ ᴅᴀʏꜱ ʟᴀᴛᴇʀ]彡★

It had been one of those days.

Who was she kidding? It was always one of those days.

It had been raining hard when Abby and Mollie had woken up, and as they had walked to school a car had driven past and splashed a puddle up Abby's entire body. She hadn't had time to go home and get changed, and so she had had to go into work completely dripping with dirty water. Arthur was drunk when she had gotten to work (it was only 9am) and Daphne had called in and said she was going to be late which meant that Abby got the full force of Arthur's bad, drunken attitude and anger that one of his waitresses wasn't there.

Abby wondered if her life could get any worst.

It was one of those days.

Everybody had them, but Abby seemed to have more of them than anybody else.

She hated her life.

Her life wasn't her own; it belonged to Mollie, to Arthur and to everybody else that she had to put on a smile for.

A lot of the time, all Abby wanted was to spend a day in bed buried under the covers crying with a tub of ice cream... but she couldn't because she had responsibilities; a sister and a job.

It was half past twelve and Daphne still hadn't shown up for work, and they were busier than they had ever been in their life. Abby was sweating and had a terrible headache, and she had caught a glimpse of Arthur swigging from a bottle of whiskey twice in the last hour.

She could barely keep up with everything and everyone. As soon as she put a plate of food down in front of one customer, another finished and wanted their empty plate to be collected. Another wanted a fresh cup of tea and somebody else wanted to pay their bill.

Would it be like this all day?

Abby was quite confident that Arthur would not let her go at 3pm if it was busy and there was only one waitress. Who would get Mollie from school? Abby had to get out at 3pm, there was nobody else who could get her sister.

Abby kept working tirelessly, hoping that the amount of customers coming through the door would slow down - or stop, actually. She preferred that there'd be no more.

But they just kept coming.

As she was wiping down another table which had been recently vacated, the bell above the door rang and she felt a rush of cold, rainy wind hit her through her still-wet tights. She turned, about to put on a fake smile and ask the customer to take a seat...

But the customer was holding a big bunch of peonies and was looking around curiously.

"Flowers for Miss Abby?" He read from the card.

Abby flushed. "That's me." She took them from the delivery man and thanked him before she went to take the flowers into the backroom.

"Who are they from?" Arthur asked when he noticed his waitress walking by with a large and expensive-looking bunch of beautiful peonies.

"I don't know." Abby reached up to the bunch and took the card.

"No personal deliveries at work." Arthur drunkenly took the flowers from her and threw them to the bin. They didn't go in - they landed on the floor, their petals splattering everywhere.

Abby wanted to cry.

Today was too much!

Tearing up, she dashed into the backroom and locked the door behind her. Sliding down the back of the door until she was sitting on the floor, Abby sobbed. She needed this. She was broken and bruised, tired and felt so lonely, and it wasn't just today that had left her feeling like that.

She needed to relax.

When she had composed herself a little, she turned the little card over in her hands and opened the envelope which it had been put in. She read what had been written on the card.

It was a phone number, and was signed:

P x

It took Abby longer than she would have liked to admit to work out that it was not signed Px, but rather P with a kiss.

But when she worked out who had sent the flowers; peonies, no less, she couldn't help but let a small smile slip onto her face.

But then she looked at the phone number again and cried.

She and Mollie didn't have a phone in their flat. They were expensive to buy and even more expensive to own. She felt embarrassed about that; Paul obviously assumed that she did have a phone. He didn't know half about her life.

Abby cried some more, and then she cried again... and then she tore up the card with Paul's number on it. She'd never need it, would she?

Abby pulled herself together and stood up and then she went back out into the cafe.

Arthur looked furious with her for disappearing, but Daphne had arrived luckily. The peonies were gone from the floor but they weren't in the bin.

Abby's stomach churned at the thought of seeing Paul and having to tell him that she hadn't been able to keep the flowers and that she had not wanted to keep the card... but he didn't come into the cafe at all.

It was the first day that he had not come in since he had been in two weeks after they had met.

Abby found herself almost missing him... she didn't know why, and she almost didn't like missing him... but during her lunch break when she had a chance to sit down and think about the delivery which had come from him this morning, she regretted tearing up the card. She had done it in a fit of sadness and anger at him for assuming that she had a phone.

But she could use a public payphone, couldn't she?

Well it was no use now because she had thrown away the pieces of the card. She wished that she hadn't.

And Abby had to remind herself that she would never actually call him. She didn't like him, did she?

Did she?