"If I swallowed fifty aspirin would you call an ambulance?"
"No," This time his expression was plain but I liked the way it slightly hardened when he looked at me; like he was displeased, uninterested, but still unable to let me go. "I'd just fuck y...
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𝐈 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐡 time this afternoon. Marcella had missed our late night catch up yesterday and I couldn't wait to tell her the news that I'd be coming to see her, but she wasn't allowed to have a cellphone and had to sneakily use it to speak to me; I resigned that she was likely being careful as not to get caught.
My door slams behind me, my steps in sync with the crunching of leaves before a sharp pain makes me cry out. One of the pleaser heels I was carrying leaves a red mark on my foot. I curse loudly, tossing them into the trunk for tonight. I reach high to shut it and as I do I see a figure wisp behind a pair of curtains in the second floor of the building.
Edna, likely, and I know she's ready to give me hell for being late for my internship for the second time in a row.
There is no humour quite like that found in a social work office. It is dark, inappropriate, and completely necessary in order to survive the grind. Desks are awash with sugar, caffeine and good intentions. The long hours and fluctuating stress levels are a nightmare for eating regularly and many people coast along on a diet of chips, fizzy drinks and an endless round of birthday cakes.
I shove my shades in my purse not wanting it to be too obvious that I'd drank heavily the night before. Edna always said it wasn't wise to drink on this job because you never knew what it would bring ─ a typical day could consist of an unannounced home visit to see if a violent ex-parent had moved back in, followed by a meeting to remove a child who's favourite game was 'kitty kat play' with her uncle; aparantly that wasn't the worst of it.
Edna once said, "You haven't had a shit day at work until one of the parents threaten to kill you and means it." Or until you've had to see to an infant with treadmarks on her wrist. Or until you've walked in on a father forcing his children to perform intimate acts on each other.
I'd thrown up for three days straight after that and wondered how Edna handled it.
"You can't fix the abuse," She sighed unsympathetically, kicking a bucket close to my desk. "You can only document it."
There was always severe neglect too - no food, locked in closets for days with no bed or toilet, filthy homes parents just generally not caring, incest, children being tied to windows and having things thrown at them, illegal substance use at a very young age; it could get gruesome, all for shitty pay.
But as Edna had put it when we first met, "You shouldn't be here for the income you should be here for the outcome."
First day of my internship and I'd worn something that belonged on a mannequin at Zara's giving the impression that I didn't belong and Edna was seemingly annoyed with how naive I was about the horrors of the world, like I didn't once take part. Five months in and I thought I'd seen it all. But I hadn't.
