Everyone talks about what happens during the suffering, but nobody talks about what occurs after. Because no one wants to admit, that it goes on and still hurts. It just doesn't stop. Maybe it never truly does. After the suffering is more suffering...
i'm sitting here for a while trying to recollect myself and him intently staring at me as if he was expecting something. what could he be expecting from me? i had nothing to give him. i don't like it when people expect things from me i always fail them. lily this time i wouldn't fail grandma. but i already had. i need to push him and his books into the back of my mind. i need to get a job.
i abruptly stand up but he's not startled, and stays in his position. i don't like this. why, i want to say, but nothing comes from my mouth. i stare at the doors and then decide to just open them. they're just doors, evie. they can't do anything to you. you've done worse. and all of a sudden i find myself flinging the doors open before my thoughts could contradict my actions.
i march to the front desk. the room smells like hand sanitizer. the clean, pale kind. i've smelled a thousand times before, but this time the scent is mixed with food spices. i think i saw a small, spanish restraunt close. it isn't a modern counter like most centers these days. it's made of an old, brown wood-looking texture. the lady at the desk has glasses far too small for her eyes, and a nose, far too big for her face. i shove my papers onto the table. i hadn't realized i had crumpled them in my fist when i was outside with the boy. my bag falls off my shoulder, but i don't care. [the strap probably broke]
"i want a job."
i said it firmly, for almost all of it, but my voice wavered a little at the end. the lady chews her gum louder. "okay, kid." she looks at my papers, not bothering to straighten them. she asked me the questions that all those fancy programs ask you- like the White Building, except these don't ask you the stuff you don't want to answer. they don't ask you stuff that is so stupidly obvious. they don't ask you stuff you don't know the answer to. for the most part. i stayed there for hours. the lady was probably annoyed but i wanted to finish everything today.
and that was the day i joined the Ansver's Help Program for Troubled Women- a program that would teach me what i missed over the years when everything was happening, a program that would help me get money so grandma wouldn't have to pay for everything, a program that would finally get me a job. i could feel it happening, and there was something churning in my stomach. i almost didn't recognize her, but at the same time i knew her right away. [we were friends a long time ago.] it wasn't fear, it wasn't remorse, it wasn't sadness. it was euphoria.
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