The Beast Within

Two

Present Day...

"Okay, I've been waiting for almost five minutes!" The lady shouted irritably at me. It was only four people working today and some of them were the new trainees.

I nodded understandingly. "It's on its way, ma'am. We're training today, so it's gonna take a little time. But it's on its way," I told her. I wanted to tell her off for shouting at me. Like ma'am, it's too early in the morning for that.

The lady rolled her eyes. "Whatever. If it's not here in five minutes, I'm leaving and taking my money back," she said and I nodded. I went to the back.

"Hey, the lady wants her bagel sandwich," I told Lauren, who worked the grill alongside David. "She's getting like, really irritated."

"It's almost ready. We ran out of bagels and had to run to the freezer to get more and thaw them," Lauren told me and I nodded.

I've been working this job for almost a year now. It's something I can do to keep my mind off of college, which is kicking my ass right now. At 20 years old, I wish I could say I'm doing a lot with my life right now, but I can't say that because I'm not. All I do is go to college, work, and go back home. It's getting boring.

Kora tells me I need to spice up my life, meet new people and she's not wrong. I'm a beautiful woman. I've only had two boyfriends. My second one broke up with me a month ago because I didn't 'give it up.' I'm still a virgin and I don't wanna have sex or do anything sexual just yet because I haven't really felt ready to do it. I've never done anything sexual other than making out. Whenever it gets too out of control, I stopped it and it pissed him off. My first boyfriend cheated on me with a friend of mine because of the same reason.

Maybe that makes me a prude, but I don't care. I've never really loved anyone since him. I feel stupid for even holding onto him, knowing damn well he's probably forgotten about me, but I wish he hasn't, because I haven't forgotten about him. No matter how many times I tried, I couldn't. I just hope he's still alive. I couldn't handle if he was dead, I just couldn't.

When Riley stopped calling, my heart broke more and more. He's hurt me badly because of that. He was my savior, my one and only true love, and he just stopped calling. He just left me, and it hurt me bad. Everyday I keep thinking that one day he's going to pick up the phone and call - my number's still the same. But no, not one goddamn phone call.

By 4 o'clock, it was time for me to clock out. I packed up two cookies for myself to take home, clocked out, and left to go back home. I had no intentions of doing anything else tonight. That was until my close friend, Alexandria, called me once I was laying down on my comfortable bed.

"Girl, I'm serious. You need to go out with me and the girls tonight. You need to find you a new man," she had said. Alex is a loud talker - loud enough to wake me up out of whatever tiredness I was feeling.

I sighed. "I don't know, Alex. You know I don't like going to nightclubs, and we're not even legal to drink yet. How are we gonna get in?" I asked her curiously. I've only been to a nightclub once, and it was for Kora's 25th birthday party but she was able to have someone make a fake ID for me, which made me feel bad because I was lying so I never went to another nightclub.

I hear her groan dramatically over the phone. "Khiri, you gotta loosen up. Like, you act like you can't have fun."

"I can have fun," I said defensively, "I just choose not to do something that'll end up in me getting in trouble with the law and my parents. You have the luxury - you stay by yourself. I still stay at my parents' house with my parents. So you wouldn't understand," I told her.

She sighed. "You're right, I don't understand. But as your best friend, I'm begging you to go out with me and the girls tonight. If you don't like it, I won't ask you to go out with us again. But tonight, just this once, please Khiri??"