Push Me, Pull Me

Part One: Chapter Eleven

Justin had never been this exhausted in his life.

With his insomnia slowly getting worse and worse and finals getting closer and closer, Justin found himself thinking this a lot, but this time, he was sure it was true.

It was 3:00 Thursday morning. He only had one more final, since exams weren't held on Fridays. Ethics. The hardest one would be the last one. He couldn't even study, because the entire exam would be essay questions. He could definitely have been sleeping, because he didn't have to leave for work until 4:30.

If he didn't have insomnia, anyway.

He'd only slept twelve hours in the past week. His vision kept blurring and sometimes suddenly he couldn't find his feet and had trouble walking in a straight line. Occasionally he found himself slurring his words and it was difficult to keep focused on a single thought, and often that single thought wasn't even coherent. He didn't know how he was going to manage three five-paragraph essays in two hours.

Lying around and staring at the ceiling was a waste of time, so he pushed himself out of bed. With a wide yawn, he stretched his arms out over his head and went into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. Double strength, since it was just him. It was too early for the newspaper to have arrived and nothing would be on TV but infomercials, but it was too quiet, too still in the dark, early morning, so Justin turned on the TV and slipped in one of the DVDs from his music video collection. The volume was so soft he could barely hear it, but at least it wasn't silence.

He stood, leaning against the kitchen wall, watching the TV through the open space in the breakfast nook. He slowly went through one cup of coffee, then another, then another, as he stared blankly at the videos playing on the screen. By the time he got through it, it was almost 4:00.

He took a cold shower in an attempt to clear his thoughts. It didn't work. He pulled on the first clothes he found, because nothing he owned violated the work dress code, anyway.

The store was unlocked when he arrived, which meant the lead manager on duty was already in. It was still ten minutes early, but Justin went inside, anyway.

"Morning," he called as he entered.

"That you, Justin?" The voice was Michiko's. Justin breathed a sigh of relief. That meant no matter how crazy anything might get, everything would be under control. She was soft spoken and barely reached five foot, but she ran the tightest store Justin had ever worked and he loved it.

"Hey, Michiko," he called back. "Yeah, it's me."

He started when she popped up from behind the counter. She laughed. "Just making sure everything is stocked under here for the morning. You can go ahead and clock in early if you want to give me a hand."

"Of course." He ducked around the back to clock himself in, pulling his apron on as he stepped behind the counter. "What's left?"

"Go ahead and start up the espresso machines and make sure they're properly calibrated," she said. "Then, when it's five before open, start the drip coffee. I'll get started on filling the bake case."

"Are we short anything?" Justin asked as he started the espresso machine. She waited until he was done grinding the beans to answer.

"Nope. We've really gotten on the overnight shift about counting properly and it's finally sunk in, because we haven't had any issues in a couple of weeks."

Justin tamped down the espresso and pulled the shot. He watched the second hand on the clock as it pulled. Eighteen seconds. Perfect.

He dumped it and did it again for the other three. Since they all pulled properly, he saved them to use for his employee drink, splashing in a little soy milk so it wouldn't burn before he had the chance to finish it.