Rara rehearsed one more time, reciting each line she had planned perfectly. It had been two days since she lost her job, two days she had been lying by leaving the house each morning, doing her best to make it seem like she hadn't been fired. It wasn't that she wanted to lie. She just hadn't worked out the right thing to say.
She paced back and forth in front of the sign that said Sunrise Mini Mart. Finally, she took a brave step inside. In a corner was a self-serve area where customers were welcomed to make instant noodles and hot drinks. Four tables were aligned by the coffee machine and the hot dogs.
Rara approached Husna sitting at a long table attached to the window doing calculations alone. "How's it going?" she said, smiling too wide.
"Did you get fired again?" Husna asked without lifting her head.
"How did you know?"
"Whenever you get fired you always start with 'how's it going?'"
"I might need to rethink my opening line."
"Did you get into a fight?"
"No. Well, maybe. I swear, it's not even my fault. Aziz found me again."
Husna looked up from her notebook at last. "They did?"
She slid onto a high chair. "But—"
"But? You don't seem that upset for some reason."
"Our debt's cleared."
Husna returned to her notebook. "If you want to make jokes, I'm busy."
"I'm not joking."
Husna's brows remained high as Rara relayed the event. Her younger sister wasn't a good liar, that was a fact, and if she were lying Husna would have already caught her sweating profusely like how she had caught her days ago when she asked how work was going. The bakery incident was told in detail, with Rara re-enacting the fight herself. When she was done, Husna was left baffled.
"You're saying who helped you?" Husna asked.
"This guy I worked with at the bakery. And his friend."
"How?"
"Is that important? Anyway, don't I get a reward?"
"As if you chased those loan sharks away yourself."
"I'm the one who had to sacrifice my job here."
"You didn't sacrifice your job, you got fired."
"That hurt."
Husna quietly let the information settle. All those sleepless nights working jobs, losing their house, their mother leaving. The idea that they were now debt-free was hard to take in.
Rara laid her head down, feeling an invisible weight being lifted. "I can't wait to see Ibu's face when we tell her. Or should I call her and tell her right now?"
Husna fell back into reality and touched her phone beside her.
"Tell her it's done," Rara said. "Tell her she can quit and come home right now."
"If she wants to come home."
"You know she works in Turkey to pay off the debt. For our sake, too."
She bit back the thought. "I'll tell her about it when I get off work."
Rara stretched and nearly fell off her chair. "Now all I have to do is find a new job. That's my, what? Fourth job this year? That's a whole new record."
After tapping her pen against the table for five solid seconds, Husna said, "I could give you one here."
She blew at the bangs in her eyes to see whether her sister was staging a prank. "For real?"
YOU ARE READING
Child of Mayhem (sneak peek!)
ActionSneak peek at Marisa Fendi's first full-length ebook novel on e-Sentral! Ex-boxer Ilham and his gang live by their own rules as the sons of infamous lawbreakers. Regarded as intimidating twenty-something young men, they only have each other to rely...