CHAPTER 2

“What?” Aria repeated, unbelieving her ears and what exactly her boss was telling her this morning. She was being fired? Impossible.

“You heard me quite clearly, I believe so Aria. Don’t question me. Just get your things from the lockers and leave the premises.” Mr. Walters dished out the instruction unfeelingly and sternly.

“But sir. Why am I being fired? What exactly did I do? I’ve been one of the best employees, hardworking too, always on time and no customer has ever laid a complaint against me. So sir, please can I know why I am being fired?” Aria inquired, her heart shattering and her mind racing a mile per minute as she wondered where she would go, how she would survive and how she would take care of her bills without this job.

“Are you still questioning me?” Her boss asked and Aria quickly realized what she had done. On a normal day, you’d dare not speak to Mr. Walters in that manner. Her boss was uptight and rigid, and didn’t give room for questioning; he gives you and order and you follow through. No room for protest, but now she realized she might’ve just made him angrier by questioning his decision.

However, she wasn’t feeling remourse for her words or taking them back either. She needed to know what exactly she had done that demanded this indiscriminate action from him.

“I’m sorry sir, I just wanted to know what I did that warranted my sack.” Her tone had calmed down, she also realized that in her previous statement she was near–yelling at the man.

“Well, since you want to know so had, I would have you know that my restaurant won’t be associated with employing the services or employees who tend to be violent and indiscriminately beat up other people.” Mr. Walters expressed.

Violent? Indiscriminately beat–up? Aria put two and two together and connected the dots, reading between the lines. It was obvious that Amy had sabotaged her. Definitely, she cajoled her father to get rid of her as payback.

Of course she would, she had promised to make her regret her actions. And quite frankly, Aria was beginning to regret her actions. Amy and her cheating bastard ex weren’t worth loosing her only means of survival over.

“Sir, I know this is about your daughter and I seriously apologized for hitting her but I caught her with my boyfriend and I got so overwhelmed with emotion, I didn’t know when I hit h—”

“Aria, I don’t care about your juvenile problems. Neither am I aware of any brawl between you and my daughter. I just can’t condone a violent person like you in my business premises. Please leave.” Mr. Walters dismissed me and with that he turned around and left Aria, speechless and confused. Of course he was lying, how can he boldly deny that his daughter didn’t put him through this.

Aria couldn’t believe that this grown man let his daughter tell him what to do and what not to do, how to run his business and made him fire a hard working employee over a small fight? Okay granted, it wasn’t a small fight; the punch Aria had landed on Amy was a direct hit on the eye, which she was sure left a bad bruise.

Aria sighed, dropping the napkin she was using to clean the tables and then she began to loosen up the knots of her apron as she walked to the backroom to change back into her clothes.

Her eyes began to water up as she dropped the apron on the bench and opened her locker to pick up her clothes. Without this job, she was empty. Where would she go from here? And then she crumbled to the floor in a broken mess and sobbed into her palms, leaned against the lockers and her clothes scattered around her.

She cried for almost an hour, before accepting her fate and leaving.

***

“Barman! More!” She demanded, hitting her shot–glass on the table. The bar man came to her and took the glass, going away to refill her seventh shot of whiskey.

Aria was at the pub that Monday evening, she felt empty and hollow and was occupied with so many thoughts she desperately wanted to forget badly. Her ex–boyfriend cheating on her, the unremorse on his face, the image of him behind Amy, and now her being fired from work.

It was a bad decision of course, spending the little money she had left on alcohol was very irresponsible. But Aria’s heartbreak puts the big capital letter D in Desperation, desperation to drive the bad thoughts away.

Her refill came promptly, and she downed it in one gulp. It wasn’t giving her what she wanted, she wanted to feel a sting, she wanted to feel the burn in her throat. Whiskey wasn’t the job for that.

More costlier, but more effective for the type of thing she wanted to feel now. The sad part about this endeavor is that she was just adding more to her plates of regret and by tomorrow morning, she would have anew entries into her list of regrets; indiscriminate spending on alcohol, a bad hangover definitely, and so many other things that would happen tonight…

The bar man nodded. This was her eight shot, which by all means should bring concern to the bar man regarding her safety and healthy drinking. But she liked him, he asked no questions and did what he was told to. Some bar men are too forward, trying to give advice to their patronizers or asking way–too–many questions about why they were drinking.

Her order arrived and she gulped it down immediately. Ah yes, the parchy burn delight it provided was bitter–sweet to Aria, and she welcomed the dry scorch it gave her.

She was getting drowsy, and her vision blurred. It was what she wanted, she wanted to black–out, escape. And that was the best avenue. She wasn’t thinking straight and needed to leave, she brought out money from her pockets. Five. Five notes.

She didn’t care to know how it was— however, she hoped it were ten dollar notes and not fifty. And then she began to stagger away. However she collided with a wall, how? There were no walls in sight before, it was an open space. Or was she seeing things?

On the contrary, it wasn’t a wall she colored with. It was a person— a man, a man’s hard chest. She was too tipsy to know where she was heading too and she had bumped into someone. She looked up, his tall frame towered above her and his green eyes were striking, even she could note the gleam in them even though she was shit–face drunk and her vision blurred.

“Watch where you’re going bitch!” He reprimanded.

“S— Sorry.” She stuttered out her apology but the man paid no mind to her, it was just another drunk girl. Her type were here every day, and they tend to run into anything and everything in sight.

He stepped away and went to the barman. She overheard him asking to buy a pack of cigarettes, or something like that. However, it was none of her business. She staggered out of the pub but she had no idea how she’s head home, she couldn’t see shit clearly and it was dangerous for a lady to be going home in this state and by this hour. Besides, she might not have enough money on her at the moment, she didn’t know exactly how much she had given the bar man.

Halfway past the parking lot, her legs failed her and her blurred vision an accomplice which made her to trip and fall. That was a clear sign that she couldn’t head home tonight, and she would’ve just slept off on the ground if she wouldn’t catch a cold. Should she return back into the bar and rest there? No, that’s even more risky and dangerous as going home alone.

Aria was beginning to regret her decision to get drunk tonight, she had an interview tomorrow. Or something like that, Bianca had called when she was five shots in and told her she had found a babysitting job for her. Aria couldn’t remember her exact words, but she felt bad knowing she would be going for the interview looked like shit and with a bad hangover. And now she had no where to stay for the night!

Getting up was a hassle, and she struggled to get on her feet. When she was up, she leaned unto the nearby car for balance and support while she thought about what she would do.

But her getting up had made her dizzy, and she felt everything that she had drank in the past hour and half coming back up her throat. She felt nauseous and she didn’t even have the leisure to try to hold in the impending hurl. The next moment, she had spilled the content of her stomach in an ugly vomit on the window of whatever unfortunate car in front of her. It reeked and repulsed her, and she was the perpetrator.

“What the fuck, man?” Aria heard the yell of someone ahead of her and she turned to face him. He was stood in front of the vomit–stained car, the car keys dangling in his hands and he stared agape at the smelly surprise on this car.

Aria stared closely and her eyes widened in realization. She would recognize that chiseled chest anywhere, that showed all it’s dents and percs vividly, pressed against the tight fabric of his T–shirt. And definitely so, she would recognize those pair of green eyes anywhere and the cigarette held in his left hand was a dead giveaway of who this man was.

The man she bumped into at the club. And she had just spilled her guts on his car.