Better Half of Me

Chapter 1

It was 3:30 pm.

One more hour until my shift is over.

I can't wait to get out of here.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind working in Starbucks. But today is just not the day.

The girl sitting in the café had been ranting on about her boyfriend to her friend for the past forty-five minutes.

"I still can't believe he would forget about our date. This is the second time!" she said, exasperated, I could see her throw her hands up in the air from the corner of my eyes.

I groaned in annoyance. Just hearing the sound of her sharp, squeaky voice is enough to send me over the edge. If I were her friend, I wouldn't just sit there and listen to her yapping on about her boyfriend. Instead I'd send a fist into her face to shut her up. It would do everyone sitting in the café a huge favour. Especially me.

This café is for people to relax and just feel at home, whether they are alone, or with someone, and this screeching mouse girl isn't allowing the customers to have that enjoyment. It's disturbing the others. Before I started working in this cafe, I used to come here all the time. It is one of my favourite places to be, the friendly and relaxing environment allowed me to think and get away from the things that were irking me at the time.

Applying for a job at my favourite café was the first thing I did after I got my acceptance letter from NYU. I knew I needed a job, my mum being a single mum and the only one providing the household income, supporting both my sister and I, wasn't enough despite the fact she works her ass off as a nurse. As it turned out, the cafe was owned by my Mum's best friend's younger sister, Georgia. Complicated relations, right? All those years of coming here, I never even had a clue she was the owner.

Over these three years of working here, I had managed to gain Georgia's trust and there would be days when she'd be away and let me take care of the shop. Today is one of those days, Sundays are always the quitest.

Right now, I'm scrubbing the coffee counter like a mad woman; in fact I've been doing this for the past forty minutes. The counter is now spotlessly clean and yet I'm still scrubbing. Afterall it's the only way I can distract myself and block out the girl's rant.

I looked up when I heard someone cleared their throat.

"Hi, how are you?" I greeted the customer.

"Hey, can I get a Latte with no sugar?" he said.

"Sure-"I started, but was cut off by the mouse chick yelling. Again.

"He's unbelievable! I mean, he agreed to have another date with me and then forgets! What kind of guy would do that?!" she screeched.

That's it.

I'm kicking her out.

I held up a finger, telling the customer to wait as I walked out from behind the counter and headed 1straight for the girl's table.

"Excuse me," I said, but they were so engaged with their ranting, they didn't hear me.

"Excuse me!" I tried louder this time, leaning my hands on the edge of the table.

"What?" she turned and snapped at me. Her rudeness had only pushed me further.

"Oh, nothing." I chirped lightly, "I just want you to know that I'm going to have to kick you out now because your loud and squeaky voice is causing a disturbance for the customers and employees in the café. So if you don't mind, I'm going to have to ask you guys to leave." I smiled innocently at them. I definitely have their attention now, with their caked-on faces looking at me with eyes wide open and jaws dropped. A few seconds later, when they managed to get themselves back to reality, I recognised them as girls from my college.