Counting Shooting Stars

Torn Heart

Four years later.

Lisa's day didn't go so well.

It started off when her straightener had short-circuited and she had to go to work with her hair half-wavy and half-straight. It was still her first year as an Intern and she was finally breaking free from the image of 'the girl that only got cappuccinos'. But all those months of hard work went completely down the drain when she rolled up to the Most Magazine, the most prestigious fashion magazine company in all of New York, looking like she was trying to start a new runway trend. And not in a good way.

Her day got even worse when she was carrying those said cappuccinos and had ended up spilling them. On herself. While wearing her brand new thirty-six dollar white button-down. But that wasn't of her immediate concern because the coffee was hot. Hot enough that her chest had ended up really red and she shrieked at the top of her lungs in front of her boss, Mrs. Khan.

Lisa could feel everyone's gaze on her, including her boss, as she pathetically bit her tongue and tried to wipe away the coffee. She mumbled an apology to her boss and said something about getting her another one. She wasn't completely sure if she had heard Lisa or not because she was barely pronouncing and her head was ducked so that her stupid wavy hair was covering her face. She wished so hard that someone would come up and start to help her, but nobody did. It took a while for people to get back to what they were doing and stop staring at her.

And then, to make things all the better, came the impromptu meeting. Lisa hated these. She wasn't allowed to talk and had to stand at the back for sometimes a solid hour. The atmosphere was always so serious, which only increased her anxiety.

Usually, she would have stood still. But that burn was really starting to itch. It felt like ants had decided to march all over her chest but there was no way she was willing to leave the room and get some ice. It was a bad idea and definitely against the rules.

Right?

"Psst," she whispers to the intern next to her, "do you think I could get some ice?"

The Intern sends her a strange glance and inches away from her.

Bloody git.

"Psst," she says again, a little louder this time.

"Lisa." Her name was brought into the conversation by surprise and she even noticed some furrowed brows amongst the seated employees. "Do you have anything to pitch in?" Her boss' tone implied that she knew Lisa had nothing to pitch in.

"Uh," she stammered and she could feel the heat rush to her face as she struggled for words to say, "um no." She shifted between her feet and stared intently at the ground. Embarrassment had flooded her thought and was most likely evident on her face. God, she wished people would stop staring at her like that  "Sorry," she says weakly.

There was a moment of silence and Lisa wanted nothing more than to shrink into the wall behind her.

"Okay," Mrs. Khan, her boss, clears her throat. "Then let's carry on. Without unnecessary conversation."

It was another fifteen minutes of Lisa standing uncomfortably until the meeting finally ending. She'd be lying if she said she didn't want to cry. She was never good at handling attention well and two public embarrassments in one day were definitely more than she could handle. She was about to file out of the room behind the other employees but the sound of Mrs. Khan's voice stopped her in her tracks.

Mrs. Khan was a middle-aged woman, with graying hair and faint signs of wrinkles starting to sink in. There were dark circles under her eyes despite obvious signs to try and cover them with concealer, and she always kept her ridiculously long hair up in a bun.