I was sixteen years old when I got my first job. My mom was constantly asking me to get one, but I preferred hanging out with friends and didn't see the purpose of having a job--I wasn't in need of money and had other ideas on how to spend my time.

But, after having many discussions about it, she won. Of course.

With logical reasoning, I chose the local Starbucks as the first place where I would apply for a job. (I liked their coffee, so why wouldn't I like working there?) And luckily, I got the job. Although I probably started working there with the wrong intentions, I showed up at the cafe on a Monday morning like it was expected of me, not foreseeing how much better than my imagination working there could be.

One of the colleagues with whom I shared my first day at work was Dawn. She was a year older than me and had been working at Starbucks for a long time. I quickly knew she was one of those girls who everyone likes. She was kind, always smiling, and even the sun would peek through the clouds just to see her. 

"Taking orders is the easiest," Dawn said. She explained to me how to do it and the way she did it made me believe that even I could do this. "The more you do it, the easier it will get."

The one thing she didn't say about taking orders was that it was the loneliest job of all of Starbucks. While helping one customer after the other, I heard Dawn and Mason--another colleague--constantly talking and laughing behind me, having the best of times while they were preparing the drinks.

I felt like I was missing out on something.

"She actually did!" Mason laughed, perhaps a little too loud.

Dawn was laughing too. "Why on earth would someone do that?"

"I think she regrets the decision afterwards."

"I'm just trying to imagine a girl going so mad that she dumps someone else's shirt in a puddle, to then find out it was her own! The look on her face--"

"It was hilarious!"

With a commercial-like smile, I helped the next customer out. On the inside I wasn't as happy though; I felt a little left out.

☕️

It was almost time for a break, according to the big clock hanging on the opposite wall.

Dawn popped up next to me, and for a second, I froze, not having expected her to be standing next to me. "How's it going?" she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Good, I guess."

She was very close to me, but feeling the warmth of her body was far from uncomfortable. "If you want to try out something else, just ask, okay?" Her eyebrows raised slightly.

"I will," I said, while thinking, I won't. I was assigned a task and I didn't want to be so rude as to ask for a different one.

Dawn continued uninterruptedly. "Mason is leaving in a few minutes, so you could take over his place, and Lexy will take your place behind the counter."

"Could I really?" I wasn't planning on asking her, but now that she came with the idea herself to let me help with the process of coffee making...

I wouldn't mind spending more time with this girl.

I mean, I knew it wasn't a date or anything, but it was probably the closest I could ever get.

I didn't wait too long to answer. "Yeah, of course!" And I could only think of all the moments we'd have together, laughing until it would hurt.

☕️

Again, she was the person to explain to me how everything worked: which cup with which coffee, where to find all the tools and ingredients and how the machines worked.

"It doesn't seem that difficult," I said when she'd finished.

"It really isn't!" she said. "Eventually, you'll get a routine down."

Unlike working at the counter, making the coffees meant working together, as a team. As it turned out, Dawn and I made an excellent team.

"That's another frappuccino."

"I need more cups."

"There should be more in the back, I'll get them for you."

We worked together like we had been doing this for years.

"Do you have the milk?"

"Coming your way." A bottle of milk glided over the counter.

"Don't!" she shrieked.

I quickly realized the reason for her shriek; the bottle was missing its cap. And as if in slow motion, the bottle made its way over to Dawn, the milk inside moving dangerously. Dawn opened up both of her hands to catch the bottle without spilling anything, but she was unsuccessful in this attempt; the collision between her hands and the plastic bottle caused the white liquid to jump out of the bottle.

She just sighed when eyeing the mess.

"I'll clean it up," I rushed to say.

"Don't worry about it," Dawn said. "I know where the cleaning supplies are; I'll do it." She shook her head slowly, and I wasn't sure if she blamed me for this mess, but I could hear her mumble, "It's not much different from home in the end, is it?"

And it wasn't until later that she explained to me what she'd meant with that comment--and as she did that, she was laughing wholeheartedly, which assured me she wasn't mad at all.

☕️

When my mom asked me how my first day went when I came home, I lied to her.

"It was okay," I said, shrugging my shoulders and passing the comment off as if it were nothing.

If I'd been honest, I would have told her this: It was great! I met this girl, Dawn, she's awesome. She taught me everything today and we had such a great time. She also has a sister who paints the walls with her crayons whenever she feels like it, which makes her mother mad but makes for a great story anyway.

I wouldn't be able to stop talking, which would, first of all, be exhausting, and second of all, I would never tell my mom that much about my personal life. She'd think that I had found a girl who I loved and she'd want to talk about it always and she'd tell my sisters--what a nightmare!

So, I didn't tell her any of that, but I did go to sleep with Dawn on my mind.

☕️

Dawn was not a tall girl; quite the opposite, really. She was probably 5'3" and while usually people would shy away from making fun of other people's heights, she was the one to make all the jokes about it.

Like when she couldn't get to the top shelf.

Dawn said she was getting something from the storeroom and would be back soon, so she left me in charge of making the coffees. But she didn't come back. Not after two minutes, not after five and not after ten. 

So, I decided to check up on her, and when I did, I found her standing on one leg on top of a box on top of a chair on top of a stool, trying to open a cabinet.

"What are you doing?" I asked while taking in the situation before me.

She groaned, clenching her teeth, as she tried to stretch her arm out as much as she could. "I'm trying to die, what about you?"

I didn't find it as funny as she did. "Get off of there! You could hurt yourself!"

"We need more milk and this is where the milk is." In a dramatic tone, she added, "We won't survive without it and I am willing to risk anything to get to it!"

I rolled my eyes. "I'll get it." It would be way easier for me, with my six-feet height.

"Thanks," she sighed. She slowly descended from the Tower of Doom.

"You could've asked me before you decided to put yourself in a death trap," I said, opening the cabinet with the milk inside of it, seemingly without any hiccups.

Dawn tried to hide her admiration for the ease with which I had opened the most upper cabinet. "I imagined you would be busy," she said.

"That's not an excuse for endangering your life."

She chuckled at that and a warm feeling went up along my spine. I liked hearing her laugh.

"Thanks so much, Eli," she said.

"Of course, no problem," I said, waving off the compliment. "We should get back, probably."

☕️

"Had I told you about my sister yet?" she said when we walked into the Starbucks again.

"The one with her obsession with crayons?" I asked.

"That one, yeah," she said.

"What did she do?"

"Nothing," but her chuckle told otherwise, and she quickly continued with her story. "Just taking scissors to ruin all of her clothes." She had a sly smile because she knew it was a great story and that I would want to know more.

My eyes widened. "She--what?"

"Unbelievable, right? She took the scissors, opened her closet and just began cutting them in pieces."

"Really? How old is she, anyway?"

"Two years."

"And already descending to vandalism? You should've raised her better."

"It wasn't my job to raise her."

I laughed. "True."

Then, we didn't say anything for a few moments, while trying to catch up with all the orders we missed because we spent time in the storeroom of the cafe. 

It wasn't an awkward silence like most that I had were. I was a real expert at making things awkward; it was my life motto. I came, I saw, I made it awkward. Not that I was proud of it.

But with Dawn, it was different. The silence wasn't bad and I didn't feel the urge to have to say something. We could enjoy ourselves in the silence too.

"My sisters are annoying too," I said then, "but it isn't enough to make a good story of it. When it comes to that, you definitely got it better than me."

"I'm not sure a psycho sister is better than non-creative sisters," Dawn laughed. 

"My dad was actually a little like your sister," I said. "Not with crayons or scissors and it was only when he was in a weird mood, but he was a little crazy anyway."

"Why the past tense?" Dawn asked. Her voice left the laughing manners behind and became serious really quickly.

Only then did I realize my use of the past tense. "He... died," I said, the two words coming out of my mouth by themselves. The sound felt distant, as if it wasn't me who was saying it. Those words still felt unreal to me and I was hesitant to say it out loud.

Dawn's expression changed almost immediately, her eyes widening and her hand for her mouth. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have asked!"

I shook my head. "You couldn't have known," I said, waving it off and profusely wishing for a new subject to come up. But when it didn't, I said, "It has only been three months."

Dawn continued to stack paper cups. "So, not that long?" she said carefully, not wanting to go too far. We knew each other only for a few days, after all. "Must be difficult."

I nodded absent-mindedly. "It is, especially for my mother."

There was another silence, and I didn't feel the need to fill it. Instead, we both worked on the routine of preparing the coffee.

Dawn then opened her mouth, and it took another three seconds for words to get out. "I get it," she said. "What your mother is going through--and you too, of course. You want to take a break, but you can't, so you just keep on living while you feel guilty--guilty because you can live your life and he can't anymore." A sigh. "It just doesn't feel right."

And she'd just put everything into words that I never could. "Exactly," I said. "Why do I deserve to live if he doesn't?"

She still didn't look up from her task while she continued to talk with me. "The universe seems out of place and you blame it for everything that happens to you."

"A hole in your life that you don't know how to fill." I smiled lightly. 

"It's the worst feeling ever, especially because you don't know how to put an end to it."

She got me exactly, which made me wonder if she'd lost someone, but I was too afraid to ask.

"Are you okay?" Dawn asked when I was silent for a moment.

I shook my head, then nodded, then just stopped moving my head at all, being confused myself. "Yeah, I'm fine."

She chuckled. "That's the most-told lie in this world."

And I couldn't help but chuckle too. "You're probably right."

She didn't ask any more questions. She understood that when I was ready to talk, I would.

So, she stuck around until I was, and seven years later, she was still here, but with a ring around her finger.

☕️

If you were at some point in the story confused or are still wondering why I wrote what I wrote, I suggest reading the author's note in the next chapter! It'll explain everything.