Clean Slate #Wattys2019

Chapter Eighteen

After a few days of training and shadowing another barista and then having a barista shadow me, I was ready to officially fly solo. Andrea had said I was a quick learner and I was relieved that it came relatively naturally to me, but I had no explanation as to why.

Admittedly, my nerves were starting to get to me. I've always had a fear of messing something up and every time I get a new job I deal with the same fears and emotions, but thankfully, I realized that messing up someone's coffee order will never be the end of the world. If it does happen, it sucks but it's something I can fix. It's not leaked classified information that I can get in serious trouble for accidentally telling the wrong person.

It was simple. Mindless.

Thankfully, the day went by rather quickly. I worked the register mostly, only making a few drinks, but the next time I checked the time, I realized that I only had twenty minutes left in my shift.

"Next in line, please," I spoke loud and clear, something Andrea really put an emphasis on during my training, something about being polite but also preventing the frustration and humiliation of customers waiting on the rapidly-growing line or those who didn't hear the employee.

"Hi, can I ha- Dylan?"

I looked up from the register where I let my vision stay while I anticipated the customer's order. There were an awful lot of buttons, I had to try to look at all of them so I didn't lose sight of them.

My eyes fell on a familiar head of hair that surrounded soft features. "Ellie, hi, how are you?"

"I'm great! I see you took my advice." She laughed and gestured to our location.

"Yes, I did and I'm glad I did. Listen, I get out of here in like fifteen minutes, are you in a rush to be anywhere right now?"

"No, I was just going to head home and do some binge-watching, but I guess I can put it off for a little while." She teased.

"Oh, only if it's not too much of a burden." I joked back. "What can I get for you? Choose carefully, this will influence my opinion on you as a person."

"Oh no, now I'm under pressure and holding up the line." Her chuckle echoed slightly. "I'll take a large salted caramel hot chocolate and a brownie."

"You got it." I grabbed a large cup and tried making the drink myself, it couldn't be that hard. When I was done, I grabbed a brownie and walked back towards her.

"Thank you." She handed me seven dollars.

"Oh, wait, you gave me too much, here." I reached out to give her the extra change.

She didn't take the extra change from me, she just smiled at me and walked away.

When I finished my shift, I hung up my apron in the back room and clocked out before I grabbed the extra change that Ellie had given me out of my pocket and since she had her back to me, I saw the perfect opportunity to toss it into her purse that was hanging on the back of her chair. I started talking as I walked towards her so she wouldn't hear the coins hit each other while they fell out of my hand.

"Hey, what's up?" I slid into the seat that was directly in front of her.

"Hi, nothing, just came to get my coffee fix."

"You do know that you didn't order coffee, yes?" I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Oh, stop, you know what I meant. I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"Yeah, I wasn't expecting to see you either. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a job anywhere else, but this place came to mind right before I quit desperately begging for a job for the day."

"Good, I'm glad." There was a moment of silence before she spoke again. "How are you... you know, handling things?"

I cleared my throat, already feeling the sting behind my eyes. I really hope that talking about this makes it hurt a little bit less because if not, it's awfully sadistic. "It's definitely been hard. I keep wanting to text her and tell her things like I'm just away on vacation, but realizing I can't is..." I had to take a minute to clear my throat again and try to calm myself down. "...hard."

"I can't even imagine, I'm so sorry."

"I appreciate it, but you have nothing to be sorry for, this is just the way things were meant to happen, I guess." I shrugged, trying to shake the desperation that I felt to get the chance to hug her again or for her to annoy me to the point of me throwing something at her.

"See, I don't really know you from a hole in the wall, but I know for damn sure that you don't believe that your sister was supposed to be taken from you so early. At least I can't imagine a reason for that." There was a slight fire behind her voice.

I'm not sure if I was trying to convince myself or if I was actually succeeding in doing so, and finally believing myself, but I persisted. "I mean, I don't know what you do or do not believe in, but maybe someone on the other side needed her more than we needed her down here. I can't imagine the situation, but I have to believe that there was a reason. Thinking that she was taken away from me, from all of us, just because of some stupid kid and a drunken accident..." I turned my attention towards the window, wanting to look anywhere but at the person in front of me. I knew that if she continued to look me in the eyes, it would only speed up the pace at which I fell apart all over again. "It'll just put me in a place that's so dark that I'm not sure if I'll be able to climb my way out." I moved my glance to my hands which were interlocked with one another so tightly that they were starting to shake.

"I'm not sure how much I believe in there being another side or life after death or anything like that, but I can understand and respect that you need to believe in something so that you have something to hold onto. I'm sorry you lost her."

"Thank you. I'm sorry I've been rambling both here and on the plane, I'm trying to sort out the way that this whole situation has been making me feel an-"

"Dylan, stop. You're absolutely fine. You should be working through this and I'm honored that you are trying to work through it with me. I know you've just moved here and probably don't have anybody to talk to, but if you need to talk to someone or just to be emotional, I'm always pretty easy to reach. Here, I'll give you my phone number and whether you choose to use it or not, that's completely in your hands." She reached into her bag, grabbed a pen and scrawled her number out on a napkin before she slid it towards me.

I watched as she glanced up and looked behind me right before her face drained of all color. She put on sunglasses that were massive on her small face and pulled her hood up. "I'm sorry, I have to go." She whispered before she ran out of the café so fast that she almost tripped over her own feet.

I turned around to look for what could have possibly scared her to the point of leaving and I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Everything looked fine. I got up and cleaned up whatever trash was left on the table, pushed in the chairs and started walking back to what I was currently calling home.

When I got up to my room, I took the napkin with Ellie's number out of my jacket pocket and put it down on the desk in the corner of the room.

I was getting used to always being at work during the day and since I had to get up so early to be there for a decent portion of the day, I was basically ready for bed by the time I walked through the door of my room after getting off in the late afternoon. I was sitting on the bed, exhausted after work and contemplating whether or not I would force myself to get up to shower before bed when I realized that I've been living in a hotel for longer than I wanted and it was time for a change.

I got up, took a shower and then got into bed with my laptop. I was looking for an apartment that I could afford when I realized that my barista job is just not going to cut it. Even if I work from opening to closing, which Andrea would never allow, my minimum wage hourly rate wouldn't add up quick enough.

I'm going to have to either quit my job and find a new one that pays more, or I'll have to work two jobs. All I know is that I'm going to have to decide soon because I am draining my savings and pretty soon, I'll have nothing left.