Love & Geckos (multiple-author collaboration)

Chapter 2: Alyssa

Alyssa slammed the bag of ice chips against the counter and imagined she was slamming it into her arch nemesis Dakota Malaitai's perfect face.

The customer whose bubble tea she was in the process of serving looked alarmed. The ice had been rock-hard initially, but Alyssa had been going at it for at least five minutes, slamming the bag of ice against the counter with the sort of violent determination that was more appropriate for a boxing ring than a small bubble tea shop, and the ice was well on its way to becoming a slurry.

"I don't mind if my ice chips are a bit on the bigger side—" the customer began.

Alyssa jerked out of her daze.

"Here you go." She scooped some ice chips into the tea, stamping a plastic lid over it with more force than was necessary. The lid was happy and green and read "Bobble Wobble Tea: a treat for all ages!"

As the customer scurried away, almost forgetting his straw in his haste to escape, Alyssa slumped against the register.

She needed to get it together. She couldn't keep scaring customers like this. She couldn't keep spilling boba all over the floor, or sloshing tea onto peoples' shoes, or giving customers an extra twenty dollars' worth of change by accident. Her manager was already unhappy with her performance as it was—she didn't want to think about what he was going to say about the lost twenty dollars.

But how was she supposed to get it together? How did you go on acting normal when your best friend, the girl you'd been crushing on for two years, had asked Dakota Malaitai out for Valentine's Day—in front of the entire school? How did you paste a smile on your face and calmly serve boba when Dakota Malaitai—Dakota fucking Malaitai—had taken the roses Sandra gave him and sniffed them, and then nodded and said, with an earsplitting smile, "See you tomorrow—can't wait to hang out"?

Alyssa buried her head in her hands—and immediately regretted it. She'd forgotten to remove her gloves, which were still sticky with boba, and now her face and hair were covered in brown tapioca paste. She looked like she'd just been shat on by a cat with diarrhea.

"Um," said her co-cashier tentatively. "Might be time for an early dinner break?"

Alyssa nodded gratefully. She tore off her apron and hurried to the restrooms around the corner from the food court, where she proceeded to attack her hair with paper towels. Her hair was frizzy, which made getting the tapioca paste out a bit harder, but it was also black, which disguised the color, and eventually she managed to get enough of the paste out of her hair that she was satisfied. She would take a long shower as soon as she got home.

She had just exited the bathroom and was meandering back in the direction of the food court when the pet store caught her eye.

Alyssa paused.

She'd always loved animals. She knew you shouldn't buy pets from pet stores, especially not pet stores with dubious breeding practices, but she figured it couldn't hurt to go inside and look at the animals. It always put her mind at ease. She'd been inside this particular store a few times on her lunch breaks, and although the owner was an asshole, there were some very cute rabbits in the back of the store that the cashiers sometimes let her pet when he was out.

The memory of Sandra offering Dakota the bouquet of roses flitted through her head again.

Alyssa grimaced.

Maybe playing with bunnies was just what she needed right now.

She tucked her still-damp hair into a ponytail. Then, with a furtive glance in the direction of the food court, she strode into the pet store, past the sign at the front, which was advertising a new display of geckos, and toward the rabbit section.

The pet store was normally messy, but today it was in even worse disarray than usual. Gecko tanks were strewn everywhere, some of them balanced in precarious towers, and there was barely enough room to maneuver through some of the aisles without colliding with something. One entire aisle, the one she usually accessed to get to the bunny pens, was completely blocked by gecko tanks, stacked almost to the level of the ceiling.

She tried a different aisle. This time, she was successful. The bunnies were in the back as usual, flopped down beside their daily crop of hay—one little brown lionhead, and a black mini-lop with droopy ears. They were getting chubby, Alyssa noticed worriedly. They probably didn't get enough exercise, being stuck in a tiny cage all day.

She made her way cautiously toward the front of the store, trying not to trip over more gecko tanks as she passed them. The cashier today was new, not someone Alyssa recognized. This didn't surprise Alyssa. The pet store owner had a nasty reputation, and the last cashier had rambled at length about wanting to quit.

"Sorry," said the cashier apologetically, when Alyssa asked her about exercising the rabbits. She had dark brown eyes and a cheery smile. A henna tattoo of a rabbit decorated the back of her hand. "I'd love to let you play with the bunnies—they definitely need more exercise!—but the owner is in right now, and he's really strict that we can only let people hold a rabbit if they're looking to buy."

"It's fine," said Alyssa.

"Maybe if you come back after hours. That's usually when I try to give the pets some exercise. The owner always leaves early... lazy git."

"I'll try to stop by."

"Great!" The cashier winked at Alyssa, and—despite the tapioca flour in her hair, not to mention the fact that Dakota fucking Malaitai was probably off kissing Sandra right now—Alyssa couldn't resist giving a small smile back.

Her moment of happiness, however, was short-lived.

She had just started walking past the cash register, toward the front of the store with its towers of gecko tanks, when in her moment of inattention, her foot caught on a turtle terrarium that was sticking out from one of the aisles.

Alyssa yelped. She flung out her arms to break her fall—and, as she lurched toward the ground, her elbow struck one of the precariously-balanced gecko tanks.

She only had time to think Fucking Hell! before the entire tower of gecko tanks came crashing down around her.

~~~~~~

CMF_Wright
CMF writes a combination of humorous and dark fantasy peppered with high-stakes situations, smart female leads, and quirky characters. (Also angst. Lots of angst.) Alyssa and Sandra both play minor roles in her Rest is Riddles trilogy, an intricately-crafted epic adventure filled with magic, mystery, and egotistical sorcerers. If you're looking for bantery romance, lighthearted chaos, and animal catastrophes, you might also enjoy CMF's ONC project, Eight Legs Too Many!