Carmen

Chapter 1

Tick, tick, tick.

The insistent sound of my desk clock's second hand turning was like a fly in my ear. Seven more minutes. Just a few more minutes until four and I would be free from the corporate clutches. Until Monday at least.

I scrolled mindlessly through my phone, wasting away the time before I could leave without looking like a slacker, stopping at a post by my old roommate from freshman year of college. It was a graduation post, celebrating her newfound degree in Civil Engineering. The envy which creeped into me couldn't be helped, although I knew it was unreasonable.

A twenty-two year old college dropout with half a degree to show for it, working in some dingy finance office making decent money I didn't even deserve. Without daddy's help, who knew what venture I would be moving on to. I was already bored of this job, as I got bored with everything in my life, university included—although I could have also been calling myself an engineer had I committed for once in my life to god-fucking-anything. I was bored of California too.

We moved here temporarily a few years ago, then I decided to stay here for university instead of returning to Vienna with my parents, so they left me their vacation house in San Diego for whenever I inevitably decided I no longer wanted to study. My mom knew me well, had dad line everything up for me. The only struggle I ever truly knew was my boredom.

In every sense of the word, I was a brat. And believe me, I knew it well. Growing up, I was never the mean girl, but I was the girl always making mean faces and sitting alone. Friends didn't come easy to me since I didn't have much of a filter and ruined most of my friendships through being blunt, but I managed to keep a few—at least here in San Diego.

Mom used to say I had some wickedness about me, probably why they don't mind the minimal contact they keep with me.

As soon as the clock ticked to four, I grabbed my purse and locked my small office behind me. On my way out, I waved to Cara and Eric, my only two work friends. I used to have a few more, but one thought sexual harassment would be a cool thing to do and resorted to shit-talking about me all throughout the office when I put him in his place. If someone resorted to using rumors to procure a judgement on someone, they weren't worthy of my time.

"Maira," I sing-songed into my phone while walking across the parking lot to my Camaro. "Girl, what? You know I'm still on the clock until five."

A smile graced my lips, I lived to bother Maira. Funny story—we met after she rear-ended me and somehow grew a friendship from there. She worked reception in a hotel while trying to get her music to take off.

"Let's drink margarita's and uber to the club tonight, I need to de-stress." She laughed through the phone, "You're the only person I know who 'de-stresses' by putting herself in a high-stress environment."

"As if you don't do it too."

"Yeah, but I'm not the one who got us banned from Ignite by punching a bouncer."

She got me there; I couldn't defend myself. It was in fairness though, the bouncer did exactly not his job and grabbed my ass. He deserved it, but the owner didn't appreciate it, and I already had somewhat of a track record at that club.

"Well that's why I want to try that new club, I can't remember the name, it's like Italian or Spanish. I promise I'll be good this time."

"You're talking about Innamorata, which is in fact Italian." Her Spanish accent allowed the word to flow so effortlessly from her tongue, I was jealous.

Starting my car, I threw my purse and water bottle inside, blasted the AC, but remained standing outside so it could cool off and I wouldn't burn my ass on the black interior.