❝I know it's hard for you to be friends with a girl without objectifying her - but lucky me, not everyone's you!❞
❝Oh yeah. 𝙁𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨. The lady goth protest too much.❞
❝𝘿𝙤𝙩𝙝, Gavin. Doth.❞
→ From Van Zandt family disappointment and Grade 8...
A/N: Here we are. The lowest point. The only place to go now is up, right? Right???
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It'd been a bit since the last time I hung out with anyone besides JT, so I kept going to that convenience store — the one Shelly took me to the night of the rave — just to have somewhere to go where I didn't have to run into anyone from school. Part of me, I think, owed the owners kindness for things they probably didn't even remember. I scrounged for change every day, took 3 buses to get there, just to say hi when I bought a soda, just to have somewhere to go. The woman behind the counter remembered faces better than anyone I ever met, and her kid was a little asshole.
The fifth or sixth time, I offered my name, and she greeted me with it every time after that.
By the 22nd, they had a coffee machine now and didn't charge for refills — even though they probably should've. I upped my purchases from a cherry coke to a coffee with far too much french vanilla creamer and one of those candy bars my dad used to deny me. This was a tiny victory for me, and he could rot in hell.
Days before Christmas, they decorated the store in chintzy red and green tinsel and multi-colored lights, which only served to make the store seem cheaper and dirtier. They didn't seem to mind, and the woman's smile greeted me immediately, despite being busy ringing up a guy who looked like a homelier Stone Cold Steve Austin.
I grabbed a styrofoam cup and filled it up a bit too much, adding in powdered creamer and stirring carefully to not spill. When I walked it over to the lids, someone slammed into my back, hot coffee sloshing over my fingers as I did my best not to drop it. I winced as I gingerly set down the cup and dried off my scalded fingers, turning to see who the perpetrator was.
The owner's son and his shorter, rounder friend laughed at me and ran off through the aisles. I liked him better before his nerf gun broke. He was somehow more of a brat now, a regular Bart Simpson. But that was just how kids were, and even in my annoyance, it didn't bother me a whole lot.
I refilled the cup with coffee and creamer, extra careful as I snapped on a plastic lid and headed to the register.
"Audrey! How are you?" the woman said as I approached with the coffee and chocolate bar.
