Spoiler Meta Spoiler Meta
Missed Call
Josh sat in Big Mike’s breakroom, chair tipped back. Zara peeled the label off her soda bottle in one long strip.
“You going to say it, or do I have to sit here all day?”
“Got the letter,” he said.
“The school?”
“Waitlist came through. Final answer. They couldn’t even call. Just an email. ‘We regret to inform you that we are unable to offer you a place for the fall term.’ Two sentences. That’s what five months of waiting gets you.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“Do I look okay?”
“You look like you want to punch the deep fryer. Which, honestly, it deserves.”
“I did everything right, Zara. Saved up. Studied. Jumped through every hoop they put in front of me. And it wasn’t enough.”
“Yeah. That sucks.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say? You already know it’s garbage.”
“Maybe something more than ‘that sucks.’”
“Fine. It’s complete garbage and the system is broken and you deserve better. Feel different?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. So what’s the plan now?”
“I don’t know. Keep working. Try again next year. Or maybe this is just it. Maybe I keep pulling shifts until I’m forty and that’s the whole story.”
“That’s not you and you know it.”
“You don’t know what’s me anymore.”
“Josh. You got thrown out at seventeen and you’re still here. You don’t get to sit in a diner breakroom and tell me you’re giving up.”
His phone vibrated against the table. He glanced out of habit.
Ben.
“That who I think it is?”
Josh turned the phone face-down. “Yeah.”
“You going to read it?”
“No.”
Riley’s was half-empty on a Tuesday. Ben was already in the booth when Josh came down the stairs. Josh slid in across from him.
“Long shift?”
“Big Mike had me on fry station for nine hours straight. I can still smell it.”
“Builds character.”
“Builds grease burns.”
They talked about nothing for a while. Regulars at the bar, whether the piano guy ever played anything that wasn’t slow and sad, Big Mike’s latest lecture about portion control that nobody followed.
“You’ve been there, what, a couple months?” Ben said.
“Since October, yeah.”
“And he’s already got you on fry station, register, bussing.”
“Whatever needs doing.”
“You saving up for something, or is Big Mike’s the endgame?”
People didn’t usually ask him that. Not like they meant it.
“I’m saving for school. I want to be a social worker.”
“Yeah?”
“There are a lot of kids out there like me. Kicked out, lost, trying to figure out what the hell to do next. If I can make it a little easier for even one of them, that’s worth it.”
Ben just watched him, smiling a little.
“What?” Josh said.
“You’re going to be good at that.”
Josh waited for the deflection.
“I mean it. Most people talk about wanting to help. You actually know what it costs.”
The piano played on.
“But you realize that’s just putting out emotional fires for a living, right?”
“Yeah, but I figure I’ve already got the burns to prove I can take it.”
“Great. A masochist with a five-year plan. The world’s in good hands.”
The fluorescent tube above the breakroom buzzed.
“What does he even want?”
“So read it,” Zara said.
“A year. A whole year of nothing, and now he just—what? Sends a text like that fixes it?”
“I didn’t say it fixes anything.”
“He left. He made that choice. And now I’m supposed to be grateful he remembered I exist?”
“Nobody said grateful.”
“He doesn’t get to decide when I matter.”
“No. He doesn’t.”
He grabbed his jacket off the hook by the door.
“I need a smoke.”
“You going to block his number?”
Josh stopped, hand on the door frame. He stood there for a long time.
Then he pushed through and stepped out into the alley.
The night air hit his arms. He fished a cigarette from his pocket, put it between his lips. Flicked the lighter once. Twice.
He didn’t light it.
Behind him, the door stayed open.
- ← Previous
Theme of Love - Next →
Mount Ordeals