S U G A R B U G

-Meet Addie-

"Thanks, come again"
I say as I wipe a drop of sweat from my brow. Today was unusually busy, and I was running out of sour bonbons and truffles like no tomorrow. I had sugar boiling, almost burning, treats ready to be wrapped, a line out the door, and no help.
This is gonna be a long day.

I had my sweet sixteen recently. Boy, was it sweet. By 'sweet' I mean covered head to toe in chocolate and sugar. Yeah. Another busy day. Recently my small business I opened "Kandy Kat" had blown up in Morro Bay. After my parents died on a plane crash, and with no other relatives that lived in the country (seeing as my birthplace is France and they all lived there) I had to meet odd's ends by myself.

I could never afford a plane ticket there, I had spent the remainder of my parent's money on rent with a meer $3,000 left and I couldn't sustain the mansion we had. So, I sold the mansion, and was preparing to live a feudal life in the French countryside, when terrorists strikes began happening. Therefore, I'm stuck here, and the quickest place I could pick up was above a Starbucks which recently closed outlooking the harbor and a noisy street. Yeah, let's just say I never sleep.

I've always loved candy. I was particularly a chub when I was small. I had always snuck candy I spent my allowance on, and gobbled it down faster than Usain bolt can run. That was my motivation for the idea behind the shop, going back in the days when my parents would scoff when They found my candy stash, but also catching them sneaking some from my dresser drawer.

I was still balancing high school and the shop when I got my food handler's card and license. I rented out the top and bottom unit, so I have a whole building to myself. At first, I was a terrible chef. I'd burn sugar, not temper my chocolate properly, my gelatin would clump, and the flavors were off. Now after just a year, I could flawlessly make a stained glass window out of sugar if I wanted. And with those kinds of skills brings customers.

I dropped out of high school six months ago in my junior year to focus on the shop. I was failing, cause I either had no time to do the work or my papers were stained with sweet substance beyond repair. I lost contact with my friends besides them coming in during lunch period to beg for free stuff, which I declined and told them specifically to
"Piss off"
Because apparently they weren't digging the supportive thing.

And now, here I am. Friendless and lonely, left with the memory and luxurious materials left from my dear parents, chipped gel nails, a worn apron, and a flour-coated french braid, almost chucking butterscotch drops at the elderly lady I was serving. Another hour dragged, and the shop's hype wound down until I was alone in the shop to clean. I washed the residue from my hands, and pulled out my phone.

Oh, no notifications except a Bubble Pop icon saying my membership wore out. Dang. I clicked in my password, and checked my bank balance. I currently had $600,000 in the bank. I remember there was $5,000,000 in there a year and a month ago, after selling the mansion. But ive spent so much on the rent in such an urban and visited neighborhood, machinery, and supplies it flew by. And trust me, I didn't know anything about marketing and incomes until hours of YouTube videos later. Still don't have life insurance, probably should get on that.

I want to hire people, and since Renee, nobody except local hobos I give the scraps to wanted the job. Who's Renee? She was my best friend, this Emo freak who moved out and lived with me in my new home when the Starbucks was closing, and I let her stay there if she helped me. She wasn't a big help with anything except clean up. One day, she was tired of her emo look and left for Brazil on an emotional healing trip. Haven't heard from her since. I held a huge interview ordeal, with promised free candy, and people came for the candy or were tourists- getting free candy. If they were genuinely interested, they'd try to upscale the revenue or go to the hardest jobs instead of the grunt work. So, I'm doing this thing on my own.

But today's events made me reconsider getting at least a dishwasher that knows how to stir a bowl. It was out of hand. I wanted more than this, more than blowing all my money on things for the shop. But here I am, after some hardship, ordering new rags cause I literally used them until they were worn beyond use.

After more cleaning and starting more product for the shop, I closed up and headed up the stairs to my house. A comfy pad with open windows and lots of house plants. At least I had my calico longhair cat Taquito and food.