Leroy Adkins is an underperformer. He barely graduated. He barely got a job, and he hardly socializes in his day-to-day life.
Zachary Turner has been sick for as long as he can remember, and as he grows older the crushing realization that he never...
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There are a lot of regrets in life Leroy had, but at this exact moment in time with him walking down the street to take the bus, the only one that really stood out was his decision to do communications as a major. Not only was his current job only enough to live but not save for the future—it also had no signs of upward mobility since it was a small marketing start-up with a limited budget and a client list that showed no signs of growing.
Something Leroy also regretted was not paying too much attention at university or studying for exams, and now he was stuck with a below B average that was frankly not enough to get into a post-graduate program. So, sadly, he was stuck working a low-paying job and living paycheck to paycheck while paying off an ever-growing student loan debt.
It was funny how those worked.
He could have sworn it was only twenty thousand when he had graduated, but now, after just two years of monthly payments, it was somehow sitting at thirty thousand.
Leroy sighed, shaking his head as he continued on his way to the bus stop. It was a deserted place, seeing as it sat just at the edge of a suburban street. He still lived with his mother and sister and paying a bit of rent allowed most of his money to go into other things—like his video game addiction, Vietnamese food, and books.
"Oh fuck," he said, squinting and then sighing when he saw the bus, he was supposed to be on drove past the stop at the end of the street without a second thought. It didn't even pause for a second. For goodness' sake, Leroy was just two minutes away.
The young man blinked back his frustration, sucking in his lips as he tried to decide between taking an Uber or just calling home sick. To be honest, he could also just tell his supervisor what had happened. She was an understanding, and nice older woman nearing her sixties.
The young man sighed, pinching the middle of his thick dark brows before turning around and making the slow walk of shame home. Wisps of his brown hair, about two shades lighter than his brows, occasionally found their way dangling in front of his eyes. He would push them away, and each time taking that as a reminder that he needed to go into the city for a haircut.
It wasn't that Leroy couldn't drive. He could. He passed his driving test sometime in the middle of his university days and remembered taking his mother's car to the gym clear as day. It had been his first time truly driving alone, and he had backed it up into another car when trying to parallel his park.
That had been his first and last day taking out that car—and also, his last day at the gym, but he didn't like to think about it much.
Leroy found his current state in life embarrassing, but he wasn't too embarrassed by it to do anything about it. Or, it was more than his long stings depression and self-sabotage didn't have a lot of those brief moments of mania and self-confidence where he would be super studious and focus on one of the many skills he'd picked up over the years.
