How To Hate Your Best Friend

twenty-three

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

PART 3/5

Did God hate me?

I didn't know if it was the universe or the fate of my demise that was so cruel to place me as the attending to the The Whitman's.

The entire night, I was stationed to stay on floor and circulate tables as a sort of waitress which luckily allowed me to avoid Colton and keep my distance from Matthew.

Even if I wasn't attending to anybody, I still had to make it look like I was busy. Whether that meant simply standing there, waiting for the rich folks to need me or pretending to look for extra Chardonnay in the backroom--always. busy.

It applied to all the waiters. Which is why currently, we all looked absolutely exhausted.

I was free to avoid Colton and keep my focus on the Harrington's' and luckily for me, were an incredibly polite, kind family. They were in attendance since they were family friends and close business associates to the Whitman's.

Unfortunately for me though, my busy hours with the Harrington's were soon coming to an end.
And silence from them meant turmoil from The Whitman table.

Fuck. Why couldn't they ask for another appetizer or something?

I did not want to go over there.

From across the room I could see Brooke and Colton seemingly having the time of their lives. Her hand caressed his, drawing circles and patterns out of nervous habit probably as she flashed smiles across the dining room table towards creepy men.

I could tell Colton could tell she was nervous. Brooke Mckailey was a lot of things, but recently, I was finding out that she was not one.

She was not blind.

She was not blind to the glances Matt and all the other ridiculously obvious men were throwing towards her--practically undressing and eating her away throughout the entire night. She was not blind to the subtle eyebrow raises from Colton's mother whenever she took a bite of food or asked for more.

In these moments, though, she looked like she wanted to be. But luckily, she had Colton to put that blindfold over her eyes and be a sort of rock in her despair.

A good amount of time had passed; it was now 10pm, and the main dinner courses were being served. And that meant it was my time to shine with table 1. The Whitman's.

Wearily, i took shaky steps towards their table. It was like the luminescent glare of gold was shining direct light onto their table specifically. Like I was walking into the gates of heaven--except, this was not heaven. This was the exact opposite.

It was hell, disguising itself as heaven.

And Colton was the angel of death waiting for me with those pale eyes that didn't leave my gaze from across the room. Like he was trying to read my mind.

As I finally approached the table, his eyes snapped away, looking down.

I stopped their conversation midway on broker economics or whatever the fuck.

"Good evening everyone," I smiled politely. Everyone's eyes shot up to me and I felt my palms become sweaty. "I'm Asha and I'll be your server for the night. If you need anything that comes to mind, please let me know and it'll be my pleasure to attend to it."

There were courteous murmurs of acknowledgement and head nods from the people sitting around the table, and I felt a breath release, also thankful that I hadn't fucked anything up yet.