Destiny

Chapter 2

Yet again, I was at work. Waiting tables and smiling fake smiles. The whole thing made my head buzz, so that nothing looked different anymore, that when I looked around for more than five seconds, everything would blur. I had arranged for my father to pick me up after my shift was over. I didn’t want to walk again. My section seemed to be the busiest of them all. It made me frustrated. When it wasn’t busy, it was completely empty, which gave me time to think.

I wondered what Jason and Eric would possibly need me out of the house to do. I shuddered at the thought, disturbing images coming into my head. I brushed them aside as someone came and sat down in my section, I shuffled my way out of the kitchen and walked over to the table, notepad and pen in hand.

“Hello, my name is Ally, what can I get for you today?” I say politely, putting on another fake smile.

“Hello Ally, my name is Eric,” the man smiles. He must only be twenty-ish, tall and to be honest, quite handsome. “I’ll have a coffee thanks, full strength.”

“Sure thing,” I don’t write down the order, it’s easy to remember.

Walking away, I smile a little, and this time it was a true smile. I go and make his coffee, carrying it carefully over to his table. Meredith, one of the other waitresses that you always see—but never see working, walked pretty much right into me, causing me to tip over the chair in front of Eric’s table, spilling his coffee and sending me falling to the ground. I lie there for a few seconds, soaking up my embarrassment—and the coffee, before sitting up. The cup is in pieces around me, and Eric chuckles, getting up from his seat and kneeling down to help me.

“You’re name was Clumsy, right?” He chuckles, putting some of the pieces in a napkin. I laugh and shake my head.

“I’m sorry; I’ll get you another one.” I apologise, picking up one of the larger pieces, only for it to cut into the palm of my hand. “Crap.”

I hissed and swore, dropping the bloody piece of china to the ground. I sat back on the floor, examining the cut. It wasn’t terribly deep, but it was deep enough to make it bleed a fair bit.

“Here,” Eric said, picking up one of the cloth napkins and wrapping it around my hand. He had already picked up all of the pieces of the cup and started to soak the coffee stains out of the floor with napkins and tissues by the time I had looked up from my hand. “Sit up, I’ll get a first aid kit.”

I did as he instructed, sitting down on the couch at the back of the restaurant that he lead me to so that the cleaners could clean up after my mess. As Eric left, in search of a first aid kit, I dropped my head into my free hand, my cheeks flaming red with embarrassment. Great. Hot guy and I go and spill coffee all over him and cut my hand open. Good job Ally, I think.

Eric comes back over and sets the first aid kit down on the coffee table, and goes to work on my hand. I don’t want to look, but I can’t seem to pull my eyes away from my hand. He gently wet a cloth and dabbed at my hand, found tweezers and pulled out a small piece of china before producing a small glass bottle with an eye dropper, a clear liquid inside. I watched as he filled the dropper with a generous amount of the liquid—which had a syrupy consistency—and hover it over my hand.

“What is that?” I ask, just as he was about to drop it onto my cut.

“It’s kind of like ointment, much easier to apply to cuts like this.” He smiles at me, gripping my hand tighter. “This will burn a little.”

And it did.

It felt like my hand was being plunged into a bucket of toxic acid, then the cut soaked in lemon juice. I had to bite down on my lip hard and look away to stop from crying. Quickly, Eric bandaged my hand up and kept it in place with a clasp. I sighed heavily as he packed the kit up.