The Serpent of Love

28. Work

August 28, 2019

"Hello," I smile at the next people in the line to order something from the bakery/café I'm working at.
"Hi," the woman smiles, a blonde little girl next to her. "We would like a breakfast burrito with turkey bacon, a big latte, a vanilla milkshake and an avocado toast-"
"No, I want croissant sandwich," the girl who can't be more than 6 tells me, her big gray eyes looking over the counter.
"Okay, so no avocado toast," the woman says with a smile.
I nod with a slight chuckle. "Anything else?"
"Ice cream!" the girl exclaims. She reminds me so much of me when I was little, not giving a shit about anyone else in this café or waiting in the line behind them. Even the people behind them chuckle a little.
"Honey, I just got you a milkshake," the mom sighs, looking down at her and then gives me an apologizing look.
"But I want ice cream," she whines.
"Later," the mom sighs.
"No, I want it now," she pouts, crossing her arms over her chest. The mom seems so done with her.
"You know, if you get it now it'll melt because you have to eat the other food before," I say to the girl. "What if I give one after you've done eating, huh?" She nods with a big smile and seems to calm down. The mom smiles at me, taking out her wallet.
"That makes 28.70, please," I say. She nods and puts a 50 dollar cash on the counter. I take it, give her the change and while writing their table down can't help but notice the 10 dollar tip she just left. I smile a little as they're already going to sit down and grab the check and hand it to a man from a window to the kitchen. He winks at me; after a week of going to school again and working here, he knows I have a boyfriend and he's like 28 with a pregnant girlfriend, so he's just teasing me with it.
I go back to another customer. "Hi," I smile at the old couple who comes here every morning as I've heard from the others.
"Hi sweetie," the woman says while the man just smiles.
"What can I get to you?" I ask politely, knowing they like to order a different thing every day. I've worked here for exactly two weeks now.
"Two usual coffees, and... how many croissants?" Clara asks from her husband whose name is Arthur.
"4," the man says.
"Are we really gonna eat that many?" the woman asks. Their typical way to start arguing.
"Tell you what, I'll bring you two and later if you want more, you can just order from the table." They both smile and thank me, pay and I get the order to another worker from the kitchen.
"Betty! Tables 3 and 14," Jack announces, pushing the food as a girl who I share a shift with -Adeline- gets back from taking coffees and drinks to everyone, with many dirty plates, telling us that now some more tables are free.
"Ads, take over," I say. She nods and I take the food and get it to our customers who all thank me with smiles and then I collect some dirty plates as well and get them inside.
The line has now disappeared and I look at the time. It's 12 on Saturday which means that everyone is eating breakfast (even though some who had to work came when we opened at 9). Now the working ones are coming between 1-4 with all the others to eat lunch.
"You look tired," Adeline says as we both sit down on the stools on our side of the counter.
I finish my yawn with a small smile and then nod. "You can say that," I say. "I'm not used to waking up early on Saturdays, I usually sleep until like 1pm."
"Wow," she chuckles. "Why did you take the early shift then?" She's 21, goes to college, that's why she has to work. I'm still in high school and many people are confused on why I work at all. She knows though.
"I mean, I can work 8 hours a day, so if I come for 9, I'll work until 5 and I can actually get some time for myself."
"Why do you work that much anyways? I mean I know you want to save for college and also go home soon, but isn't it too much? Every day after school for 4 hours?"
I shrug. "I'm fine with it, I'd love to be home, but my mom doesn't want me to be alone all the time, so..."
"Why?" she frowns. I tense up. Crap. I haven't told her about anything going on with me.
"I'm uh... I'm sick."
"Then how can you work?" she asks in confusion. "And if you can be here alone, why not home?"
"No, not that kind of sick," I murmur. She looks at me in confusion and I sigh quietly. We have white dress shirts for uniform with a beige baker apron, which is actually really beautiful and we can choose every day if we want to wear a long sleeved or short sleeved shirt; everyone has short because it's hot, but I'm always with my long sleeved ones rolled up a bit, not showing all of the scars and so far no one has noticed. I pull the sleeves up a little more and see her eyes get wider as she looks at my cut arms, some of them quite fresh. Soon, she turns her eyes on my face with an apologizing look and I pull the sleeves down quickly, but know that now she's able to see the scars on my wrists as well.
I stand up quickly and go to a new customer and put on my fake smile as usual. "Hi," I say.
"Hi," the man smiles. "Uh, I'd like an almond latte with a extra shot of espresso please."
I nod, "One moment," and go to the coffee machine. I make it for him, put the sugar on the plate under the cup and take it to him. He smiles and pays me for it.
"Thank you," he says before leaving a tip and taking the coffee outside to sit there.
I go back to Adeline and sit down on the stool, feeling awkward now. "When did you start doing that?" she asks worriedly. "Does your mom know?"
"About half a year ago," I say quietly. "And yes. She doesn't want me to be home alone in case I have a panic attack or just a bad day..."
"Do you have any other- sorry, it's really not my place to ask," she says, frowning to herself.
"It's okay, I trust you," I say quietly, so that the customers wouldn't hear. "I've had social anxiety for a while now, it developed after I moved to LA, but I started seeing a therapist in January, because I also have panic attacks in crowded places or just at school in class. I take the medicine for different anxiety disorders and now the depression ones too... I see a therapist once a week." She seems so shocked from all of it.
"Are you doing better at least?" she asks.
"A lot," I say, nodding and take a sip from my water. "The pills help a lot when I have an attack or feel anxious and also the therapist has done miracles with me, so... To answer to your question," I chuckle. "I work a lot to be away from home and keep myself busy, but also because my mom and brother have to buy me the medicine and pay for every appointment a huge amount of money, so besides the plain tickets, I'd also love to help them a little," I say.
She seems so sad and shocked by all of that. "And... have you gotten to hospital? With the cutting?"
I shake my head with a small smile, making myself look creepy probably. "If you wanna die, you cut parallel," I say quietly. "If you wanna loose blood and get sick you cut wrists," I say and her eyes go on mine for a moment and then on the ground. "If you wanna hurt yourself, you cut upper arm so you can go deep without actually hitting veins."
I see tears in her eyes. "Which ones do you do?" We've gotten close with the two weeks, she feels like my bigger sister. I trust her, but talk quietly so that no one else would hear.
"I've had some wrist ones, but I mostly do it up," I explain with a timid voice. "Sometimes I'm just sad and it annoys me how the veins and arteries feel and how hard they are... Upper arm gives me the freedom to hurt better."
"But you're-" she sighs quietly, wiping her tears away and looks at me. "You always look so happy, you're like a ray of sunshine every time you're here."
I smile a little. FP used to call me that when I was younger. "I'm doing better, but there are still days I feel like dying," I say in a natural whisper and gulp. "But you know, having depression isn't always just being depressed. I still like to have fun and read and write and stuff and if I do the things I enjoy and spend my time with the people I love, I really don't feel that bad... Just school sucks."
She chuckles at that quietly and looks at me sadly. "You know you're 4 years younger than me, but so much wiser."
"That's right," I smile and go to the client who just came, leaving her laughing now.

I sigh and pull my headphones down my ears, so that they'd be around my neck and look towards the counter. There are only a few people left in the line now and since Adeline just had her break she's working and now I'm on a break. I really need a coffee, but I've been waiting for a while until people disappear, but they don't so... I push myself up from my seat and leave my laptop there with the apron on top of it and check on it every second as I go and make myself some coffee.
"Still don't get it how you drink black," Ads says as I pass her and I smirk and go back to sit down. I pull my headphones on again and open my laptop. I keep listening to Radiohead, sipping the coffee I've always hated and suddenly love, and keep reading the few last sentences of the article I'm writing for the newspaper mom works at. She told both me and Jug to write an article, gave us the topics and we have more than 50% change to get them published (there are many others trying out, but most of them ate already checked out and not good enough from what mom told me).
"Hey you," I hear. I look up and smile at Taylor and Lynette sitting down in front of me. I stop the music and pull the headphones off.
"Hey," I smile. "What are you doing here?"
"You're finishing in a couple of hours, right?" Lynette asks. I nod with raised eyebrows. "Great, we're gonna hang out here until then."
"And then what?" I chuckle. "I'm not going out anywhere to any parties."
They sigh and share a look, making me smirk. "Fine, we're not going, but you can come over. You're gonna come over, you're working all the time now and when you're not, you're studying."
"Getting ready for college," I grin and she giggles at that.
"What? Lyn, you told me we were gonna at least try to get here there," Taylor whines.
"You have the whole year to get drunk and then after that all your college," she tells him with a tilt of her head.
"With who? You girls are gonna go to Harvard or something."
We chuckle. "I don't want Harvard, I want Stanford," I correct him.
"Same thing," he rolls his eyes.
"Right, 'cause west and east coast are the same," Lynette says. "I want Cambridge."
"I need to go back to work," I say and save my article fast. I take another sip of my coffee and then stand up, tying the apron back on. "You want anything?"
"Is that black?" Taylor asks me, pointing on my coffee. I nod. "Can you get me a latte?" he asks. I chuckle and nod and look at Lynette.
"When I'm hungry," she says.
I roll my eyes. "You're always hungry, I can make an avocado toast or something, it tastes amazing."
"Okay," she smiles. I leave them my headphones so that they could watch YouTube or whatever they're doing and go back to work.