Azia
"You cannot keep missing classes Theo." I hiss over the line, tugging my clothes over my body, already late for work since my alarm didn't go off this morning and unfortunately I had no back ups, nor was I a freaking early bird.
So i'd overslept.
He huffs on the other side as if he doesn't understand what my fuss is all about even if Im literally telling him what my fuss was about. Men.
"Im trying to but Im so tired in the morning Azia."
I almost snort. Because I was clearly the same, maybe it was genetic or something. "You're a seventeen year old in a fancy boarding private school, just walk to class and sleep in there, sit at the back, I don't care, just do it, put your bag in front of your face and sleep, okay?" I advise him frantically, putting my hair into the usual tight low bun when I had no idea on what else to do with my curls this time of the morning.
It was not wash day, I think... but its okay. Tomorrow was a new day and I could do it then, yep, great, fabulous, fantastic.
"Wheres Micah?" I ask him as I walk through the hallway, using one hand to pull my ballet black work flats over my feet covered by the sheer tights that all the waitresses were required to wear.
"Asleep."
Liar. "Don't lie on your brother Theodore." I say, because I knew them all like the back of my hand.
Micah was the most responsible one between the triplets, and Jane was a close second, but Theo? Theo was an absolute menace in every way humanly possible.
He sounds exasperated when he speaks, "Theodore? Is this really that bad or do you also think you're being kinda dramatic?"
I try to hold in my sigh, but I'm much too tired and just let it out, holding my keys to my chest when Im by the door I speak, "Yes Theodore, its actually that bad, I need you in school, I need you to have a proper education, I need you not to get freaking kicked out of that place too." I really did need him to stay right where he was until graduation which wasn't too far since these kids just kept freaking growing apparently.
"You have a diploma in business but you're working as a waitress, education is weird."
I hum at that logic because truth was, the real world was hard as hell to maneuver around, nothing was as easy as he thought it was, hell nothing was as easy as I thought it would be, it was actually one hundred and fifty times harder.
"Because its harder to get jobs with a diploma rather than a degree, Im struggling for one here." I tell him the last bit in a joke manner, but we both know its actually not a joke. Its the truth disguised as a joke.
The two boys of the triplets were somehow freakishly smart, Theo in coding and all things technological based, of course, since he gets in trouble when being on his phone in class almost every minute of the day.
And Micah at english and all things to do with memorizing.
Jane was freakishly athletic, but she focused on track, and so all three had acquired scholarships to a good private boarding school up near Boston, but in order to keep those scholarships, they had to keep their grades up and while doing so attend their after school shit too and to do that, they'd have to keep all their class attendance up.
Something Theodore was incapable of doing it seems.
"Just go to class, please, i'll call you all later, okay?" I tell him, hoping he couldn't hear the evident defeat in my tone as I open the door of my car, getting inside and slamming it closed soon after.
He sighs and hums before he mutters a quiet goodbye and ends the call and I throw my phone to the other side onto the passenger seat and I breathe in and out softly.
I know he's tired of the expectations he had to meet being in a school like that, but I couldn't afford for him to go anywhere else, most high schools didn't give full ride scholarships, but this place did and we had to work with what we had acquired.
It was a good opportunity.
He just needed to push through for this year and next and then he'd be off to any college he wanted to go to, hopefully with a good scholarship but if not i'd make a plan since i've already been trying to save up for them.
I still sent the three of them money of course, for clothes and other shit teenagers used money on, but I knew Jane was a babysitter part time and the other two worked at some ice cream place after school, but there was only so much they'd pay two seventeen year olds at an ice cream shop.
So of course I still tried to help them on my side, and we managed, as much as we could manage at least.
I get to the restaurant and I have my hair tied back and flats on and smile on my face like a newly painted picture and I grab my phone before I turn the car off and run over the expanse of the parking lot hoping today wasn't a complete shit show.
Of course I mean more than it already had been. Actually it was not a shit show, it was an old mucky sewage show.
Thankfully not many cars are parked here, as usual, because it was only 7am and nobody came for coffee at 7am but we still opened at 7am which was pretty damn well inconvenient for our shift hours.
I push the door open and wave my outstretched arm over my head, making it known I'd arrived, "Im he-"
"Late, thats what you are, you're late." My boss interjects without so much as showing any expression.
His voice is cold and not at all sympathetic to the twenty three year old girl who had to juggle raising three seventeen year olds over a phone for majority of our lives, and well, life has been damned well hard.
I only saw the triplets during the summer holidays, during the winter break in December, and always surprised them for their birthday in early February.
It wasn't much of a surprise anymore since i've done it for their fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth birthday that was only two weeks ago.
"Im sorry, I had troubles with my alarm-" I begin to explain, only to be interrupted a second later.
"This is the third time this month." The worst part is that I was only ten minutes late, and there was absolutely no customers in here, not even one.
Which made me inwardly fume. But on the outside, I tried to maintain a normal expression.
My boss was always like this, a tight ass, piss pot, dingleshit. We didn't even get bonuses for Christmas, and barely got any time off, even with usually working seven days a week.
"I'll tr-"
"You already had far too many warnings given to you Azia." He says loudly and I try not to flinch at his tone as I look away, eyeing the plants that nobody bothered to take care of, except me.
I knew what was coming now, and I knew those plant's would be dead in a few days, weeks if they're lucky enough for someone to see them dehydrated over there in the corners of this place and just pour some water into its fresh put soil.
My poor babies.
"Im sorry but i'm done with warning you." He doesn't even sound sorry when he says it which makes this a lot more painful than it should be.
I may hate my job, but it was a paying job nonetheless, it got me money and I needed money to live like everyone else in this world did.
I hope my eyes are as pleading as my voice sounds. "Please, I need th-"
"Go." Is all he says as he rounds the counters and pushes a door open to the back, walking to the inside of the kitchen and I stand there, utterly defeated as I watch him continue after firing me like it was nothing.
Like I was nothing. Not a human who needed an income and food. Nothing.
I worked here for a year and a half, and all I got was a, go, as a send off? Hurtful.
I turn around, not in the mood to ass kiss for a place to work, especially today since I already had little to no sleep and knew all the ass kissing wouldn't work on his icy heart anyway.
I make my way back to my car, pulling my flats off halfway there before throwing them through the door when I get it open with what little strength I had.
And then I get in my car, and I sit for what is only minutes but feels like hours.
Thinking.
Breathing.
Thinking.
Breathing.
Thinking.
I breathe slowly, picking my hands up, almost slamming my steering wheel in with my fists but I put it back down.
Sighing in defeat.
Tomorrow is a new day.
And then I put the key in the ignition and drive myself back to my house, hoping my siblings were all okay and not having as shitty start of a day as I was.