Where The Lines Overlap [CTH]

[49] The Space Between A Rock And A Hard Place

2016  

Alexia

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The holiday season came and gone and I was getting ready to return to Brighton for the beginning of my last term. Carefully, I began to load my luggage and boxes into the back of my car, before kissing my parents goodbye. Graduation was around the corner and I had buried my nose deep into my books long enough to feel anxious for it.

A lot had changed in the last few months of the year of 2015.

I moved out of Seb and Avery's apartment a few months ago. We still lived in the same building but I moved to a flat two floors above theirs. 3 was a crowd anyway and truth be told, the walls were awfully thin between us, especially at night.

Although, our living arrangements were different, I still had dinner with them almost every night. I missed Avery's cooking too much and she knew that for a fact.

I also made a few more friends in university, finished an internship program in a company and quit my job in "Treacle Treats" to work at a popular clothing store further down the Brighton high street.

Working in retail wasn't drastically better than working in the food industry. In fact, it was quite similar. Customers were still rude at times and the work hours were long and strenuous for we weren't allowed to sit down. As I was hired to be a sales associate, I was constantly on my feet - folding clothes, helping customers and checking products in the store room. Living alone meant paying rent alone, so I had to endure everything.

The pay was a lot better though than what I earned at the coffee shop, although I did miss hanging out with Seb terribly and oddly enough, my hair and clothes smelling like roasted coffee beans.

At work, I bonded with quite a number of people who shared the same shift as me. One of the girls I made friends with was this really nice and funny girl named Danielle Richardson. The reason for this was at the end of my first week at my new job, I was on my way home when my car suddenly broke down. I was mortified when this occurred as it was 11 o'clock at night and the high street was crowded with weekend party-goers who all witnessed me not knowing exactly what to do.

Luckily and before I was in a state of hysteria, Danielle's Dad owned a local auto shop, so when she saw the hood of my car burst with smoke, she rang him up and got it fixed for me at a discount.

It became a running joke between us for a long time and we were close ever since.

"Did you see the customer earlier who dropped all those clothes on the floor when she realized she didn't want to buy them anymore?" Danielle ranted to me, as we dug into our food quickly for our lunch break. "Like, why didn't she just hand it over to us nicely?"

It was the dreaded SALE season. We couldn't afford to relax when the store was so hectic inside. 

"Yep. God, that was annoying." I groaned, before shaking my head. "And the woman whose baby threw up outside the women's changing rooms? That was a disaster."