Happy Endings

01. late

"Till we collide, with heavy hearts and open minds."

☼

Kellin Quinn didn't want to be sitting at this meeting. He didn't want it to show but the incessant tapping of his fingers on the wooden surface of the desk and his bouncy leg under it was enough to give it away. Anyone within close distance would notice that something was up with him, but no one around him did. Too busy listening and nodding to everything that was being said.

The meeting wasn't even going anywhere anymore and Kellin couldn't understand why the assistants were needed to be at this client meet-up for this long. Their boss Trenton wasn't making any new points at all, he kept going over the same stuff because the client kept asking questions, the same questions, over and over again.

He could do that perfectly fine on his own, Kellin thought, instead of pointlessly dragging it out and taking forever to finish. He knew Trenton loved those kinds of meetings though, so that's why there were all still there. Stuck.

Still, Kellin tried to make eye contact with his manager Phoebe, who was sitting a few seats away from him, but it was rather useless. The bleach blonde woman was typing away on her laptop, eyes fixed on the screen and nodding along to what Trenton was saying, a slight frown in between her eyebrows. He wouldn't want to interrupt whatever she was doing anyway.

And so Kellin remained seated on the coral-colored chair with his knee still bouncing, trying not to look so anxious on the face, and kept stealing glances at his black wristwatch. He already knew what the hands of time would say—it was late—but he was the type to beat himself up for things he couldn't control. Like his lunch break. His lunch break that was supposed to be two hours ago.

Kellin Quinn didn't want to be sitting at this meeting because he was two hours late.

A creeping feeling of nerves and worry had already been looming over him for that long, but there was nothing he could do about it. Not if he wanted to keep his job, that is. He guessed he could just stand up and walk out and deal with the consequences later, but the more sensible part of his brain told him to wait, to not risk it. He could never risk something so big as that. All he could do was bear it with several internal sighs and drown out his anxiety with the glass of water in front of him.

He looked at the notepad and pen he'd brought to the meeting, resting on the desk with the important details he'd written about this client's information. He didn't have anything else to write down now. He wished he'd brought his laptop instead so he could be doing something other than just sit there "listening". He could even be working on other stuff in the meantime. He knew he was thinking about all these as a way to cope.

As a last resort, he grabbed his phone that was beside the notepad and checked the time (again). It was 3:21. Her classes finished at 1 at the most. He was always there at around 1:10 every day. To put it simply, he felt like shit.

Kellin's younger sister Tay had messaged him a few minutes ago telling him the school was handling it and that he shouldn't worry, but he still felt pretty shitty. He tried to get Tay to pick her up but she was also busy at her job and couldn't leave. He tried his mom but she wasn't even answering back. He tried asking his close group of friends too but they were also dealing with their stuff. He understood, of course he did. He just hated feeling helpless.

He'd even considered a name on his contact list that would complicate things to no extent but in his desperation, he wouldn't care. Fortunately, he didn't.

His friends were still blowing up their group chat with messages asking for updates or sending encouraging words which he truly appreciated, though they weren't helping his raging brain. He couldn't be calm, not really, and it was while he thought about this when he heard his name being called.