It was a warm spring afternoon. Alexa was taking her way home after the morning walk she had in the city park. It was her one and only day off for the last month. Although it seemed to her that it was more than a month: that much tense was her schedule. She somehow managed to combine her studying at the University with her yet part-time job. But she knew very well why she is doing that, scarifying her life for the future benefits.
So there she was, walking around enjoying pleasantly warm weather. She was already about a mile away from her house as she saw the coffee shop and she decided to take a cup to-go.
When she entered there was not very crowdy inside: a few people sitting around the tables and three boys waiting in the line. Alexa came closer. Not really close enough to the guys because they were messing around and occupied the whole space. Two out of three cups of coffee were standing ready and the coffee guy was about to finish preparing the last one.
"Cut it out" one of the guys told another.
"No you cut it out" he replied, punching his friend's arm.
"There you go. Your coffee is ready. Have a nice day" said the coffee guy.
All three of them took their drinks and continued talking about apparently extremely important things only they knew.
"I said stop it! Stop doing that or I'll beat your ass"
It was that moment Alexa should have understood that something is about to happen. In fact she did realize that but it was way too late.
While those three were messing around they completely forgot about paying attention on what was going on around them. And in that very moment when they turned around to go out of the coffee shop that tall guy who was bulling his friends stumbles and starts falling towards Alexa. And everything would be not that bad but he had a big cup full of hot fresh made coffee. The disaster was inevitable.
***
That was only 0,0001 of a second that seemed to Alexa as a whole eternity. But she was so petrified, she couldn't move. And right a second after that she felt the splash of the hot beverage on her chest. It was such a burning sensation that covered her skin so fast and gave her the feeling of pain so strong she had never experienced in her entire life.
"Oh my God! What have you done?" She yelled. "That hurts so bad, Jesus!"
She started rubbing her skin to calm that burning feeling. The guy was terrified.
"Oh God! Oh my God! I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry..."
"Well you should have!" Alexa replied yelling. "How could you behave so stupid? What are you, eight?"
"We were just having fun, how was I supposed to know" the boy tried to justify himself. He looked so desperate and frightened.
"You were holding a big cup full of the hottest liquid possible. That was the clue"
Alexa bended of pain, holding hand on her chest. She felt that burning feeling spread throughout every inch of her body.
"God that hurts" she said and went straight to the restroom.
As the door closed behind her she took of the t-shirt and looked at herself in the mirror. Her skin was burning, it was super red. She tried to wet a couple of paper towels and calm that terrible sensation. But it didn't help. In fact it only got worse.
