Reminiscence

Chapter .38.

R-E-N-E-S-S-E

"Excited?" Aiden asks, wrapping his arms around my waist.

I ruffle his silky locks. "You bet."

It was his first day to work too, and we both were jittery but excited. I couldn't wait.

"Wanna have lunch together?" He asks, twirling a strand of my purple hair around his finger.

"Sure. I'll find a place and call you when I'm out for break, okay?"

"I'll meet you there. Animatrixx headquarters isn't far from where I work." He smiles.

"Perfect." I murmur.

Our foreheads brush against each other and he laughs. "Just like you."

"Oh my god, Aiden that was so cheesy."

"You loved it though."

I roll my eyes, smiling. "Whatever."

His eyes flick to the clock. "I better get going. See you for lunch."

I kiss him and nod. "And.... I'll update you if anything happens."

The invisible worry lines on his face now become visible. "Yeah..please, just be careful."

"I will."
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"Third floor, Up and Coming group, fifth desk to the right." The lady with the yellow glasses tells me, her eyes still on her computer.

"Thanks," I say and rush toward the elevator, before the doors could close.

I barely make it and sigh in relief.

You know the awkward silence in an elevator when you're travelling with a group of strangers? I couldn't take it anymore. It smelled of aftershave and lemon sanitizer. Totally mundane.

I try to tap my foot to the beat of an old Taylor Swift song, and move back a bit because I never like being too close to the elevator doors as I always had this fear of falling right through them. Don't ask why.

While moving back, I accidentally step on the delicate toes of a man in his late thirties wearing Marvel flip flops with my combat boot. He howls and clutches his foot, jumping about in agony.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, are you okay?" I say frantically, reaching out to soothe the poor man.

The man clearly is not okay and just continues to howl and jump about.

While doing so, he bumps into a lady carrying a huge pile of paperwork and knocks the glasses right off her face. I gasp and try to retrieve her glasses but the woman, now close to blind, smashes my poor hand with her heel, while trying to balance the nearly collapsing pile of paperwork in her arms.

I scream in pain and retract my sore hand.

Meanwhile, the lady carrying the paperwork stumbles and the tall column of heavy files fall onto the young clerk carrying coffee and he plummets to the ground, screaming as the coffee spilled everywhere like a fucking beverage tsunami.

"Fuck, fuck fuck!" I scream and hide behind the man whose toe I injured, still massaging his aching foot.

Bad move.

The man looks at the wave of steaming hot coffee headed to boil him alive and steps back, crushing me against the elevator doors.

"Dude you're killing me! I say and slap his shoulder repeatedly, to get him off me.

He makes some kind of noise like "Waaaugh!" and ducks as the coffee splatters onto his bald head.

Half of it spills onto my face and hair, and I curse violently in about five languages, my skin burning from the hot liquid.