The Cusp of 30 (Working Title)

Chapter 4: "There Was A God After All."

I had decided to save the Outback for another night, maybe when I wasn't feeling so let down and pathetic—although I wasn't exactly sure why I was feeling that way, and so I tried to figure it out while on my evening run around the neighborhood.

Okay, yes, being twenty seven and working at Save-A-Lot was pathetic, but I had at least a little pride in knowing that I was the best employee there; and I also knew I would have been running the place if it wasn't for Don Sr.—who, at one point, I admired—feeling the need to provide his worthless, lazy son with some sort of stepping stone. Part of me understood when it happened, reasoning that he probably felt it was his duty to take care of family, even when they didn't deserve to be taken care of. I remembered feeling jealousy toward Don Jr., not for stealing my promotion, but for having a father who had the ability to give more than just his thin hair gene and a monthly $200 child support check that his mother used on booze.

But what I remembered most was the way Don Sr. looked at me after he made the announcement to our staff, how he locked eyes with me for two full seconds, trying as hard as possible to read my emotions before it became too obvious to everyone else. I had just smiled before pulling my eyes away to Don Jr., who was laughing while performing a curtsy—yes, a curtsy—because it was all a big joke to him anyway. So I fake-laughed and clapped along with everyone else, and that was that. Not only did I never bring up how fucked up it was to Don Sr., but I continued to keep working just as hard, definitely harder than his son. And, I guess, eventually I had stopped thinking about it until Zeke's friendly reminder of what a coward I had been.

And then here came another opportunity to move up, and I was just handing it away again without a fight, but I didn't want to fight Zeke for it because he was right about everything—that I didn't want to be there, that I should be working for someone who values work ethic instead of duty or honor or whatever I had used in my head to justify Don Sr. screwing me over. But I didn't want to. All I wanted to do was help rude customers find shit they didn't need, then go to Zeke's apartment so I could bitch about it while eating pizza.

And that's what made me fucking pathetic.

"Keep it up, Katie!" shouted Mrs. Crow in her stomach-turning, raspy voice. She exuded more happiness than she probably ever received, and she often told me how if she hadn't started smoking a pack and a half a day when she was fourteen, she probably would have gone to the Olympics for swimming because she was that good. I couldn't ever remember thinking that I was that good, where I could have gone all the way, at literally anything. Maybe that was why I'd let others take things I felt I deserved. I thought that maybe I'd start thinking that way after all, that it's all about what's in your head. And just like that, I felt each stride become longer and higher as I ran, and I could even feel the wind—or, like, maybe God?—from behind helping push me forward, reminding me that I wasn't on this journey alone.

And then I literally wasn't alone.

"Hey, wait up!" I saw her shout from behind the hood of a car.

I obviously didn't slow down. I didn't need Antonella's shit today, and I hadn't quite gotten past my bitterness for tripping over her lug wrench the other morning. I kept running.

"Nice stride!" I heard her shout, and that's when I turned around to see her running behind me, smiling.

I couldn't believe she was fucking following me, and so I started running faster, not a full sprint, but just fast enough where I knew she couldn't keep up for long.

"Fuck off," I shouted back.

She might have laughed, I wasn't sure.

I turned the corner out of our neighborhood and onto the main road. There wasn't a sidewalk, so I crossed the street and ran against the traffic, like I'm pretty sure one is supposed to do, but, to be honest, not too many people from this town run (if any), so who would honestly know.