Monday morning, I woke up at seven, got dressed, and pretended to go to school.
I had been pretending for a week now, ever since my grandma had insisted I was going to go down to the school and find out what was taking them so long to enroll me. There was no way to tell her that the transcripts were never coming, so I packed a peanut butter, honey, and strawberry jam sandwich and an apple and went out to kill time.
When we had first moved to Freefall, I had transferred easily to a new school. But then we'd started moving around. Each time, I either had to find a way to get to my old school or transfer to a new school. A couple of years back, the confusion had gotten the better of me, and I'd started working full-time at the pizza place instead. We needed the money and we needed the free food.
I kicked a empty pop can. Even I could see that I was going in no good direction with my life. My grandma was right about me. I was turning into my mother. Only worse, because I didn't even have a dream to follow. My only talents were shoplifting and singing. And I had too much stage fright to sing in front of people.
I decided to visit Orion. He probably had another hour before he got off work. If I bought him coffee, he might not mind me hanging out with him so early.
The 7-eleven was mostly empty when I went in and filled two large paper cups with french vanilla coffee. I fixed mine with lots of sugar and caramel creamer, but I didn't know how he liked his, so I pocketed some packets of sugar and several different creamers. The woman behind the counter didn't even look at me as she rung me up.
Orion was sitting on the hood of his car, listening to the car radio.
"Hey," I called. He looked up with a tired expression on his face. I held out the coffee, and he just looked amused.
"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" he asked.
"I dropped out awhile ago," I said. "I'm going to get my GED."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Do you want the coffee or not?"
He sighed, sliding off the hood of the car. "Sure, hand it over."
I pulled myself onto his car and carefully set down his cup. Then I uncapped mine and took a long sip. The warmth of the liquid felt good on such a cold, wet autumn day.
Orion looked at me and leaned back. After he was done looking, he started pouring sugar into his coffee, stirring it with a pen from his pocket.
"How was work?" I asked.
He looked up at me and laughed. "Did you come here to mess with me?"
"Geez, I was just asking."
Orion smirked. "Come on, what are you really doing here? People do not visit me."
"How come?"
Orion hopped down and looked at me again. I wondered if the owner would hire an eighteen-year-old girl. My last paycheck wasn't going to stretch much further. Orion had worked here when he was younger than I was.
"Orion," I said, "do you know if they're hiring here?"
"Trying to bribe me for a job, huh?"
I sighed. "Paranoid much. I just want to know."
He shrugged. "It seems like they're always hiring because someones always quitting."
"Really?"
"Are you saying that you don't believe me?" Orion looked defensive like maybe I was only being nice to set him up for something hurtful.
