The secrets behind a coffee shop

The past

I feel like it would be unfair of me to plop you right into the middle of my current situation without giving some background. My parents separated  when I was 5 and my sister was 3. Their divorce was pretty ugly, so ugly that my mom and my dad had to sit on opposite sides of the stadium at my graduation, among other things that has made it very difficult for both me and my sister, Caitlin, to trust them. Me and Caitlin used to fight a lot when we were younger, but as we grew older I grew more protective and take my role as an older sister in her life very seriously. My mom, who I've been told I'm the spitting image of, was selfish and ready to start her life over and forget about the kids and family she left behind to live with the younger man she left my dad for in New Jersey. My father still is, as I currently live with him, Irresponsible with money, and very ill, due to health complications from morbid obesity. My junior year my dad was in the hospital more than he was at home, which was very difficult for my sister and I As we stayed with our grandparents. The tension between us and them while my dad was away rose. He was always the buffer in the house between me and my sister, both teenagers, and our grandparents in their seventies. Me and my sister constantly butted heads with our grandmother who we referred to secretly as Strangeworth. Strangeworth being a fake old lady from a Shirley Jackson story. You might imagine my grandma was just that, a fake old lady. I got to an age where I had little tolerance for her. Her main problem was with me rather than my sister as I didn't look the way a grand daughter should in her eyes. I had fashion colored hair and piercings with a love of skimpy skirts that she found scandalous for my size at the time. I didn't like time a lone with this women. She found my social anxiety humorous and made my dads stays on the hospital even more difficult. 

     There are many things my parents have gifted to me and my sister. For me it was a terrible name like Valley, the munchies and a genetic pre-disposition to mental illness. That latter for her as well. I spent most of my life being obese.  
      In high school I was about 5'2 and 233lbs, most of my weight going to my hips, and even now 80lbs later, it still does. Except now I'm flat chested, which is a raw deal. My style has grown a lot through high school, even when I was limited to  plus sized clothing I can see how far my style has come. There's a photo of me with long brown hair, really bad acne, a double chin (I didn't know what contouring was yet) and jeans that were a size too small from comic con when I was 14 as opposed to my prom photo where I have freshly done roots, the pink hair I've always wanted, clear skin thanks to birth control, and eyeliner wings that looked even. Even if I hated the sight of my own face I had to admit I've come a long way.

Along with the mental turmoil my mother and father have gifted I have always been introverted and struggle with anxiety and agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is a fear of public spaces, or a fear to leave your house. I was afraid to leave my house because I had no idea how to socialize with the people outside it which made me socialize even less and when I did I couldn't helps but obsess over it. The height of my agoraphobia was my junior year of high school. As a result of enjoying alone time, under developed social skills, and a love a carbohydrates, I've managed to stay a virgin who has never been drunk, or high all the way into my first semester of community college.

    The start of my senior year I was at my second year of my seasonal acting job as a creepy doll at the haunt 'Fall freights'. I loved working there because the year before it really helped with my agoraphobia to be out and doing something around people. Not only that but people that I liked, my haunt family were the only people I really had at the start of the year.  This is because of one very recurring thing about my high school experience, and my life in general is: people leave. My mom left, my best friend left, the girl I liked left.  Everyone always seems to leave, so I started my senior year totally alone without the friendships I had started with four years ago, which is one of the reasons this job meant so much to me at the time.

     Out of loneliness I would turn to the Internet and meeting random people sites to make 'friends'. Most of these people weren't friends though, and more so were creepy fuckboys who wanted nudes, but there have been a few good ones. On thanksgiving of 2015 while I was bloated at home in my grand parents family room I searched for a good conversationalist on one the of the shadiest and widely used websites on the Internet, you probably know what one I'm talking about, and met Jay. I'm sure you know the start of these conversations.
Him. "M21."
Me . "Hi."...."f17."
Him "where are you from?"
Me, "The U.S., New York, You?"
Him, "The UK, I'm Jay."
Me, "Valley. What do you like to do in your free time?" I had a feeling this was going to be a dead conversation, but I went with it anyways.
He responded "I teach guitar and skate board, wbu?" I told him that I was finishing a season with my haunted house and was probably going to look for a new full time job after. We exchanged usernames of a messenger app and sent each other photos. He was a tall thin boy with short dark hair, piercing blue eyes, a beautiful full but well trimmed and groomed beard (I like my beards), and a jawline that could cut you. And I was a dumpy princess bubblegum impersonator who could not stop playing with her side labret to save her life, and he said what at the time was the most degrading thing he could of said to me. "You're hot." Like he's going to get nudes by telling me that. I just wrote it off and said thank you, but the next day, in my aunts suv on the way to see my mom who lived in New Jersey for the holidays I get another text from Jay. "Hey."
"Hey, what's up." I said not expecting the conversation to go anywhere.
"Not much, just pissed it's too cold to go out and ride my skateboard, I hate this time of year." He replied
"Really? I love autumn, it's warmer than winter, and I have no risk of sun burning my pasty skin."
"Thank you for not calling it fall." He wrote back
"Why? What's wrong with fall?" I asked
"I hate when Americans call it fall because they basically just made up a word for a season that makes no sense." He replied quickly
I smirked and wrote back " I think it makes sense."
He replied again "Really? Please explain it to me."
"We call it fall because the leaves are falling."
"That's so stupid, you might as well call winter fall too then because the snow is falling."
"The snow doesn't really fall, it like pours or flutters, leaves are known to fall here."
"You could call spring fall too because the rain is falling." He continued. We argued about this for an hour and a half and after that conversation, I knew I liked him, and he could seriously mess with my head any time he wanted to. We talked pretty my everyday non stop to the point where I'd even pull out my phone in physics if I saw a message from him. For the most part we'd say we were friends. There were definitely feelings there, but with both of us beings so far away, and me not being 18 yet, we found it hard to justify doing anything about it, so we tried to speak with other people. Eventually that didn't work either, so from February on, he became my not boyfriend. My first beginning of any relationship.

    We managed to make it through graduation and a move that since we were already long distance took no toll on our relationship and eventually I looked for a job so I could save and come see him. This lead me to applying to a coffee shop that would soon make me miserable.

I apologize for my grammar I blame the American education system