Settling the Score

Chapter Six

Point, spray, and repeat.

It got boring real fast.

The water at full blast barely removed the sudsy mess the clean-up crew sent our way. We had one hose between us and it only extended enough to reach one parking spot, keeping both Rosie and I restricted to the small rectangular space.

Grown ass men drove to our station, took one look at our clothed selves, then at the girl who pretended she could barely hold a hose, and our lack of smiles and the result? They pouted aggressively. We destroyed their half-naked school-girl fantasy. Some honked and others threw trash out their windows. Pigs.

Dan controlled the traffic and sent the creeps on their way when they showed signs of being entitled weirdos.

I had to deal with the trash they threw out their windows. Rosie couldn't pick things up without straining her delicate little finger. I picked up the coffee cups, burger wrappers and half eaten burritos and walked all the way across the car lot to the trash can because we weren't allowed to traipse into the café without buying something.

It didn't matter how many times I pointed out that this was a one-person job and that there was no proper drainage system except for one tiny drain, Coach Connelly refused to let either of us leave.

We weren't the only ones who'd asked to switch jobs, and we weren't the most persistent either.

Dorothy had kicked a bucket and accidentally doused Izzy's shins four minutes in. Izzy also had accidentallytripped over herself and slapped Dorothy in the face with a sopping wet sponge. Their soaked clothes hadn't been enough to convince either of our coaches to allow them to swap jobs.

Their antics had tripled the coaches' conviction and made it harder for anyone else to plead their case.

Rosie had played the injured card, holding her finger to her chest when her dad walked by, pouting when he asked if she was okay, and had threatened to get a doctor's note. Her dad had laughed in her face.

She'd even gone as far as buying her dad a coffee and donut and he'd still said no, but he'd said no with a sugar high.

He'd snapped his teeth into the donut, placed one hand on my shoulder and the other on his daughter's and mumbled, "The number one commonality in teenagers is heartbreak. Do with that what you will."

What bullshit.

What were we supposed to talk about? How we both got fucked over in exactly the same way ironically by the same people? How those we were supposed to trust the most betrayed us for each other? Was I supposed to care about her emotional wellbeing now because we'd both gotten our hearts ripped out of our chests?

Like I said to her during the game, we weren't forming a cheater haters club anytime soon. But we were stuck together whether we liked it or not.

I didn't even want to talk to my friends about what happened with Carter, never mind with a stranger; a stranger who'd assumed the worst about me. Someone who had no problem hating my guts without getting the full story. It didn't matter she annoyingly knew exactly what I was feeling better than anyone else.