Back To Back

01: WITS' END (WE CAN'T HELP YOU SUCK IT UP)

BROOKLYN LANDON feels like she's being lied to. And possibly hungry. Nope, definitely being lied to.

"What do you mean, there's been a slight mistake?" She fights, damn hard, she might add, to keep the incredulousness out of her voice. Unluckily for her, a tad manages to seep back in to create the weirdest voice she's heard from herself in a long time.

"Well, you see, we don't really know how it happened, but you have to take the evening classes now." The brunette woman at the counter says sympathetically, while simultaneously managing to keep sounding like she's taken four cups of coffee in the past hour.

"And there's no changing back to the morning classes? Really?" She doesn't really care that she comes off as a little rude anymore, it seems like she's at her wits' end and also at the end of her patience, and this bright woman who possibly has some blonde under her obviously dyed-brown hair isn't helping matters.

"Nope," the woman helpfully says, fixing her with a smile like a mega-watt light that's suddenly been turned on as you're almost getting to sleep, aka too bright.

Brooklyn manages to compose herself enough to quietly step out of the door and not cause a scene. She's been here for forty minutes, asking the same woman the same questions, and she's been getting back the same answers: a shaded we can't help you, suck it up.

At the lady's bright (like everything else she does) "Have a good day," she hurries to the car park, gets into her parked car and screams, ignoring the temptation to turn on the engine so that everyone can hear the car horn that's she's pounding on in her frustration.

The almost-hit street sign and the brand-new dent in the car trunk only serves to prove that her day is a straight-up top ten on her "Worst Days of my Life" list.

• • •

SHE COMES home to find her aunt sitting cross-legged on the armchair with her customary cup of coffee. Aunt Emily, unlike other aunts, is not a tea kind of person, but a flat-white-in-cracked-china kind of person. And it shows, sort of, in her flat, from the color scheme of the living room to the kind of mismatched-but-still-kind-of-matched furniture and even the ceiling of the place, which is painted a bright, apple green. Out-of-the-ordinary and unique and slightly weird but completely unexpected. Brooklyn likes it.

"How was it?" she asks, studying Brooklyn like a bird watching it's prey, but one that suppose is harmless until it swoops. She knows that look, she knows the thoughts behind it, and she knows what's coming after.

"They said I have evening classes now," Brooklyn says in a voice that is muffled by the keys that's between her lips as she tries to yank off her shoes.

"What?" Her aunt rounds on her, but Brooklyn doesn't answer until she's gotten her shoes off, falling over in the process. She decided to stay on the floor anyway; standing up doesn't seem that great a prospect, especially with her aunt looking down at her almost menacingly, and Brooklyn's only saving grace is that she knows her aunt can't do menacing to save her life.But there's also the problem of her aunt learning menacing now. She stays down.

"Apparently there was some kind of mistake. I can't talk to anyone about it, hell, I can't do anything about it. And I should know, I've stared down that secretary that told me that for the whole afternoon."

"Your problem, then." Her aunt moves to the sink with the now empty-cup, like everything's forgotten.

"That's what everyone keeps telling me! What am I supposed to do for every morning for the next year?"

Her aunt whipped back so sharply that Brooklyn's eyes gets lost in the sheer quickness of her movement. "I know what you can do."

Her aunt has finally succeeded menacing, Brooklyn thinks ruefully, there's no other word for it when she has that mischievous look on her face that practically has evil plan scribbled all over it.

She sighs inwardly, but her sigh turns into a shiver when Aunt Emily starts smiling at her in a very accurate depiction of the Joker's everyday expression. Bless her luck, the day Aunt Emily learns to act well is the day that karma comes for her.

• • •

"UM, HI," she says tentatively. "I'm supposed to go for an -" she checks her phone, "interview?"

"Sweetie, no need get all nervous like you're going to go for some high-ranking job crunching numbers, we all wanna just get to know a lil' about you before you get the job," says the woman she's currently talking to that somehow manages to come across endearing and slightly reprimanding.

And sure enough, she goes right in like the lady tells her to do, with nothing in her head except the echo of "Sweetie" in the woman's slow, smooth voice.

"Miss Landon? Ah, may I call you Brooklyn? You can call me Marcus."

Brooklyn feels the rollercoaster in her stomach come up again, to the 'safe' level just right before the car drops, and she doesn't remember what she had that feeling for in the first place, anyway.

• • •

i know i didn't update yesterday yes i'm sorry *hides* but here it is, first chapter of b2b, sort of more lackluster than usual (who am i kidding i don't have enough posted up to even have a usual) but nano's been challenging since i get stuck so often and so easily and my trusty editor and idea-giver is away on vacation and also doing nano, which means she has to worry about her own book (i see you @hushedsilence) anyway hope you enjoy and please don't kill me if i don't update, thank you in advance *gets into bunker*