Almost Home [Halted]

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It has nearly been a decade and all I hear is yelling and cuss words pierce its way through the faded beige walls of this house. Be it daytime or midnight, they never stop.

I am Demetria Caswell, a 20-year-old who lives with her parents and is sandwiched between their hatred for each other.

I work at Starbucks to earn a living. My family is well-settled, but I know that I can not rely on them anymore. They can't even handle themselves, how will they ever handle me? Also, it is a good way to stay away from their tantrums.

I have a noisy best friend, Constancia Balfour, 21-years-old and an eccentric boyfriend who I've been with for the past four years, Scout Attmore, 23. Honestly, they're more like family than outsiders.

Constancia works with me at Starbucks and Scout works at Friday's while he searches for something permanent, as he got fired from his previous job due to some misunderstanding, just a month ago.

"One chocolate-chip frappuccino with extra caramel on top as well as the bottom." Scout bites his lip and flirtatiously looks at me in my barista uniform.

"Get out or I'll call security, pervert." I smirk while brewing a cup of coffee for a customer.

"You're such a bore, do you know that?" He childishly pouts and follows it with a sigh.

"Why are you so rude to poor little Scout, Dems?" Constancia walks past me with two plastic cups in her hand.

"One s'mores, no extra caramel or chocolate and one chocolate-chip frappuccino with extra caramel drizzles every-freaking-where for the cutiepie." She winks at Scout and places the cups to my right.

"You should have been his girlfriend instead of me, you know." I roll my eyes and pick the cups up, preparing the s'mores.

"That's not a bad idea, is it, Cia?" Scout snickers.

"S'mores for, um," I hold the cup up and read the name, "JK?" I raise an eyebrow.

A guy, about in his mid twenties, walks up and partially raises his hand, "Here. JK."

"Was that a pun or are you the JK?" I blink constantly, staring at him as clueless as ever.

"I'm JK, Jake Kentucky."

Scout spits out the water he is drinking and coughs, trying to hide the fact that he's laughing. I bite my lower lip, trying to contain it too.

"Pardon me, sir. Here is your drink. Have a nice day and come again!" I smile.

He takes the drink and leaves quietly.

"You were too obvious, Scout!" I place my hands on my hips and roll my eyes, while facing his direction.

"What? Jake Kentucky? That was funny, okay." He guffaws. I join in too.

I offer him his drink, he pays, places a kiss on my forehead and leaves. The day passes by normally.

It was time to close the shop down. Today, Cia and I am on cleaning and shutting the store down duty. We complete our tasks and ensure that everything is closed. Scout waited in his car, meanwhile. He always picks and drops us. I'm always the first one to get off as I live closer to the store than him and Cia.

"Bye, guys!" I say as I kiss my boyfriend goodbye and hug my best friend, allowing her to make her way to the front seat as I leave.

"Love you, Dee." Scout said as he reversed and took off.

"I'm back to hell." I let out a sigh and press the button on the left side of the elevator.