Better Than Before

Chapter Seven

     
   Even with the curtains drawn the rays of sunlight made their way through the thin material, casting speckled light into the small room. Clothes were littered across the carpet, appliances and shoes entwining as Kelsey darted from one side to the next in a hast. Her hair still wet from the rushed shower she just endured, the hotels towel rubbing roughly against her skin as she threw items all around her.

   The alarm clock beside her unkept bed glared at her in red flashing lights; 09:07. Standing in the midst of her madness Kelsey's eyes scanned the room over and over, hoping to see a glimmer of gold somewhere amongst this chaos.

       "It's got to be somewhere, Kelsey. Deep Breathes." David's calm voice spoke from the speaker of her phone that laid on the vanity table, half covered by a single grey sock. "Do you need me to go wake Milly? She's better at this-"

       "No-no-no, Milly's chastising is the last thing I need. That's why I called you David." Kelsey responded panic lacing her words. "Oh I fucked up major last night, I'm hungover as sin and I know that you won't judge me for that."

       "Gotcha. Not waking Milly." There was a brief pause. "You do know that I will be telling her later though, right?"

       "Oh I know you guys will have an in-depth conversation about this later. But what I need now is a friend to talk me down from the panic attack that is imminently approaching." Kelsey sucked in a deep breathe, her heart feeling as though it could burst out of her chest at any given moment.

      "What time is your train booked for?"

       Kelsey laughed, collapsing in a heap on her bed, tears threatening to fall.

      "My train is at 10." She answered "But even if I found my ring in time to check out and make it to the station to get on the train I can't." The tears fell, pooling down her cheeks and unto the purple sheets.

        "What do you mean?"
        "I've lost my purse too." Kelsey cried. "I'm such a fucking idiot."

        "Oh, shit."
        "Yep."
      "Right, ok. We can figure this out."

        "How David? How are we going to figure this out in the next 30 minutes?" Kelsey grabbed one of the pillows, covering it over her face she let out a mild scream of frustration.

        "Firstly, have you frozen your cards on your bank app?"
        "Yeah."
       "Good, good. Secondly, have you got everything packed and ready to go? That way you're not going to be racing about."

     Kelsey looked at the state of the room that surrounded her. Clothes miscellaneously strewn over furniture and floor.

       "Umm no not yet. I'll get on that." She answered sitting upright.

       "Right ok, progress. Thirdly I'm going to point out that you don't have to come back today." Kelsey's head whipped around in the direction of David's voice. "You still have like 6.5 days left of your accrued holiday hours. I was sorting out the rotas for the next couple weeks and noticed. I presumed you'd just want to put them through on your days off between shifts but we can certainly make it work for you to take them as actual holiday for once."

    Kelsey sat in shock, her heart rate lowering slightly. She was never one to take actual holidays, it had become an unspoken agreement between herself and David that if she had any left by the end of the financial year he'd just put the days through on her days off to boost up the pay for her.

    "Yeah, I mean, that could work." She responded. "You guys going to be alright at work, though?"

    "Don't get me wrong, Cameron's going to pull out what little hair he has left knowing he's going to be working with Marie as stand in Head Waiter, but I'm sure he'll survive. I've had a couple of the newbies bugging me about hours too so that'll keep them sweet until I figure out a long term solution." Davids laugh crackled through the speaker, a small chuckle escaped Kelsey's mouth at the idea of it all. "It just means that you have that extra time to sort everything out. Retrace your steps to find your ring and to go and visit your bank's branch to sort out the lost purse situation."