My Best Friend

Chapter 1

-24th December-

8:45

Waking up slowly, I look at my phone with groggy eyes, trying to gaze through the bright screen to figure why I'm waking up this early

I groan and slowly sit up, running my hand through my wavy black hair and look through the notifications that I missed throughout the night. 3 Instagram alerts, 6 missed Snapchats, 1 unread text and 56 skype messages. I sigh internally as I sort what I actually need to look at and what I can skip.

Swiping the skype messages away makes the other notifications become more prominent. I open Snapchat and look at who I received them from. Alexa, Joshua, James,  Maira and 2 from Jackson. I open all but Jackson's knowing that they would just be blank screens with "Streaks" written across the middle. Correct in my guessing I go to open Jackson's before looking at my text. Recognising the number to be my boss, Alex.

I open the text and begin to read what it says, "Where the hell are you? Your shift started 25 minutes ago!!" Looking at the time stamp I realise I am already half an hour late. Jumping up out of bed I run to the shower and start the hot water, quickly washing off.

"Shit, shit, shit, no time for Breakfast," I say running to put my white work shirt on and black pants. I grab my backpack and throw in a change of clothes, my wallet and phone as well as my Uni text books to read during my break. I grab my keys and run out the door. 

Driving up to my work I run inside to see a very busy store and an unimpressed boss. I quickly run to the back room and make a sharp right turn into the break room, where my work best friend, Sarah, is sitting with her head in her arms. 

Hearing me come in she looks at me with watery eyes, dark bags under her eyes and a very pale complexion, "About time you showed up, Luke." she says in a witty and tired manner.

I manage a fake laugh before saying "Yeah I slept in. You've looked better" I say while I write on the sign in sheet and drop my bag down. 

"It was a busy Friday night," she says, I give her a quick hug before hearing Alex clear his throat behind me.

I turn around to see Alex standing in the door way, despite being my boss he doesn't look to be all that older than I am, as I have seen him around the uni campus from time to time. His golden brown wavy hair is swept back tidily, and his deep green eyes pierce my soul.

"Luke, you better have a seriously good explanation for being 40 minutes late." He says looking at me with a serious face. I'm suddenly short on words, I turn to look at Sarah, who is quite obviously looking away trying to stay out of this,

"Uhh I, slept in..." I say unconvincingly. He looks at me, sizing me up trying to tell if I'm lying or not. He looks me in the eyes before letting out a huge sigh.

"You pick the single most busy day of the year to sleep in, I need all hands on deck!" he says before letting out a sighing again, "It's fine, this is the first time in a good while you've been late, just don't make a habit out of it okay?" He says waiting for a response, I nod my head before he walks out with me and Sarah following suit. 

- End of the day-

I glance at the time.

5:53

"7 more minutes" I mutter to myself as I watch the last of our customers exit the store, praying that no one else decides to walk in for some last minute Christmas shopping. My gaze drifting between the door and the clock, I notice someone walking towards the store entrance. I let out a sigh before smiling a huge smile.

"Welcome to -" I cut myself off as the customer walks past me, making a B-Line to our toy section.

"I'll be here if you need me," I mutter to myself.

6:17

 I sigh and drop my head in my hands.

"The sign clearly says that we close at 6, why are they still here," I think to myself noticing the dismay of all the other employees, waiting for this one customer to leave so that we can start cashing up and finish cleaning up after the general chaos that was Christmas Eve shopping. 

"Attention all shoppers, attention all shoppers: The store is closing now, please make your way to the front for any final purchases, before exiting the store. Thank you for shopping at Kmart" I glance over to the intercom and see Sarah putting the phone down, looking generally tired and pissed off. 

"Thank you for shopping-" I cut myself off again as the customer rushes out of the store.

"About time they left," Alex says sounding defeated. He closes and locks the door before changing the Open sign to Closed. He sighs in relief. 

6:30

"Sarah, Luke, Amy and Jonah. You can all go, Carl, Mark and Susan, you're helping with cashing up and cleaning." Sarah looks relieved and turns to look at me. 

"But Luke turned up 40 minutes late today, shouldn't he have to stay behind?" Mark interjects. Alex turns and looks at him. 

"This is the first time Luke has turned up late in months, he works hard and was supposed to be finished at 5, but stayed on late just because we were busy. That and I actually like Luke" he says looking at me. "Now you 4 go, rest up and have a Merry Christmas." 

Sarah and I don't need another invitation, as we head to the break room to grab my stuff. I open my bag grabbing my phone to look at the notifications I missed throughout the day. 

"Shit," I say, causing Sarah to look at me. 

"What's up?" she says writing down both of our finish times. 

"I just missed 6 calls from my mum. I forgot to tell her I was working today." I say going through my other notifications, 10 Snapchats, 3 Instagram alerts, 6 missed called, 12 unread texts and 124 skype notifications, I ignore them all. Sarah looks at me and laughs,

"I wish my mum cared about me like that." She looks down, looking as if she's about to cry.

"Let's go get some dinner, my treat!" I say wrapping my arm around her as we walk towards the exit of the store. Waving good bye to everyone. She gets into the passenger seat of my car and as I start the ignition, she starts to cry. 

"Hey, what's wrong?" I say turning the car off.

"It's nothing," She says unconvincingly.

~~~