Interrupted

Hollis

You knows what's funny about life? One day everything is laid out perfectly for you. You have a game plan. Where you're going to college. When you want to get married. How many kids you want to have. You know what I mean. Then life being the asshole that it is comes and knocks your happy butt down off that horse that was getting a little too comfortable.
My life was going to be great. The freedom was calling me. I could taste the fresh air that was not the town I grew up in. Nobody was going to know me or my family. I was simply going to be Hollis. Not Hollis Elizabeth Anderson. Not the girl that always smelled of coffee and cakes. Just Hollis.
Then like I said before life became an asshole and took that dream away from me and decided that I would forever be Hollis the cafe princess. Trust me, I did not come up with that title myself and if I am being one hundred percent honest I die a little every time I am referred to as such.
     See I wasn't going to be the cafe princess anymore. I was going to become a social worker and help those in need. I wanted to be the reason someone smiled and I wanted to help those that needed it the most. I get it coffee is essential but it wasn't the kind of help I wanted to offer in my life. And frankly, if Billy Mark comes in one more time to tell me jokes about how many fish it takes to catch a man I might throw up in his coffee and claim the milk soured.
        My daddy knew this dream I had. He knew that I craved the freedom of being different and being helpful. So he saved and he saved. He was going to send me to college in Texas and I was going to come back a new girl. Then mama got sick and that money that was being saved for me turned into money to help my mama survive.
       Life is twisted. She didn't survive and I didn't go away to become anything different. Daddy took it the hardest and I don't know what he regrets more. Losing her or keeping me. He gave me the reigns of Anderson Coffee telling me that while I wasn't helping those in need I was helping the town from assholes like Billy Mark.
        Mama died ten years ago. I am still in my small town and I am still the cafe princess. You would think that being twenty-eight they would drop that title. Yet, I think they get joy from watching me cringe.