A Walk Apart (Episode 4: All In)

Chapter Five

Brie stared down the Seedling's register only minimally intimidated. It couldn't be that challenging. It basically did the work for her. Running over Simon's instructions in her head, there wasn't much to it but reading price tags, punching in numbers and writing out receipts. She might even be good at it.

"Here comes your first customer." Simon hovered nearby looking more nervous than she felt. "Are you sure you've got this?"

Brie was efficiently prepared, as he had previously attested to. She had this. "How hard could it be?"

"We are about to find out." Simon left the counter and began stocking t-shirts on the rack three feet away. Conspicuously keeping an eye on her.

Brie displayed her most welcoming smile as Mrs. Kellens approached the counter. Everyone knew her as Dog Lady because her entire wardrobe consisted of puppy faces. Today, sleepy beagles decorated her red cardigan and the tiny head of a stuffed, hair-bowed terrier peeked from her bag. She placed a pineapple candle holder and a couple of frog—not dog—magnets on the counter. After a quick examination at the jar of chocolate dipped candy canes, she fiddled for a satisfying one and placed it beside the frogs.

"Hi," Brie greeted cheerfully. "Looks like you've found some great stuff."

"Uh huh," Mrs. Kellens said while digging through her purse around her furry friend.

"Okay. Let's see..." Brie turned the pineapple over to read the price sticker. She typed in the numbers and accidentally added an extra zero making it an extremely expensive candle holder. "Wait. Sorry. Um..." Was there a backspace button somewhere?

Simon quickly came to her rescue. "I'll take it from here. Why don't you take care of the t-shirts? Baby steps."

Brie gave an apologetic smile to Mrs. Kellens who was too busy debating her quantity of candy canes to notice her bank account was one key away from being depleted. She grabbed a graphic tee of a gorilla head from the box and slipped it onto a hanger. That was easy enough to not mess up.

The bell over the door rang and Ashlee moseyed into the shop trailing along her rain cloud on a kite string. Her arms swung loosely with her fists in her jean jacket as she trudged over. "How's the first day on the job going?"

Brie sighed as she hung up a t-shirt with a beautifully painted glittery snowflake on it. She couldn't even cut out a decent paper snowflake without losing one side. Attempting to paint one would be a glittery disaster. "I've already been demoted to t-shirt duty." She looked up at Ashlee and her problems faded to the background as she saw the wounded look on her face. Stupid Jared. If he already had a girlfriend, why spend so much time dragging Ashlee along? He should have at least mentioned her. That's usually something you bring up when you meet someone new to avoid situations like these. "Have you talked to Jared?" Or should I?

Ashlee absently flipped through the shirts on the rack, sliding them one by one down the metal ring, her mind completely elsewhere. "I've been avoiding him. If I try really hard enough, I might actually be able to make myself invisible."

"You can't run away from him forever." After all, they lived in the same building, and it wasn't exactly the biggest in the city. And there was no escaping the texts. Brie had seen for herself the messages piling up in her inbox. His persistence showed he cared. That should have been enough to realize this wasn't a lost cause. He wanted to talk to her. "You should call him."

"How am I supposed to ever speak to him again? He probably thinks I'm obsessed with him or something."

Brie pointed a hanger at her. "This, what you're doing, is obsession. You're driving yourself crazy for nothing. He likes you. Why else would he be willing to spend so much time with you?"

Ashlee folded her arms, sinking deeper into her bubble of sadness. "Because he felt sorry for me. The wandering puppy looking for a friendly face to rescue her." She shook her head. "I'm such a loser."

"You're not a loser." Brie showed her a shirt of a teddy bear with big heart eyes. "You're in love."

"You are a nutcase." Ashlee spun around for the exit and pushed herself out.

Ashlee could deny it all she wanted, but Brie knew her moodiness had less to do with her feeling embarrassed and more to do with Jared being unavailable. Liking someone who already had someone else was hard, especially when the future looked so promising. In a couple of days, or weeks depending on how deep the crush was rooted, she would move on and get over it. That would be Jared's mistake.

***

Will Ashlee ever get over what happened between her and Jared? Stay tuned.

-Love, Charly