[Sunday, Night]"Hey, Owen. I know this is sudden notices, but I"m dying. I"m really ill and can"t go into work today. Since you covered for me the last time I told the boss you"d do it again. Don"t worry. I"m sure you"ll be great. Good luck."
That was a message I received about an hour ago. It was rather sudden of Ethan to request this, but I"ll just add it to the list of things he owes me. I wasn"t against helping. Although I did kinda forget one important detail about this place.
"Hey, Owen." I kinda forgot about Kaylee. "Thanks for helping out."
"N-no worries."
I don"t know what to do; which is nothing new. I don"t know how much she thinks I know about the whole Ethan situation. I think the best bet is to act as if I know nothing at all. Just go full dumb mode and never speak.
"Owen," She said. "There is something I want to talk to you about."
Oh no, here it comes. I"m not getting out of it. She"s going to ask and when she does, I"m going to have to talk to her about some serious topic. I"m sorry Ethan for always getting involved with you love life.
"Since you were last here we got a new system. I want to explain it to you," she said.
Oh, that"s not so bad.
"Oh, ok."
She explained the system to me which was very similar to the last. It was almost identical. I may as well just be a full-time employee because I already know everything about this place. I even know the worker romances and gossip.
Several hours pa.s.sed and I realised that there was one small bit of information Ethan forgot to mention to me, he never told me he was working the night shift.
Turns out I finish around 6AM. I didn"t even know this place was open for that long. Do people even come in at that time? Are they wasting money by paying people to work at night?
"Don"t worry too much about things," Kaylee said. "We get on average 2 people per night."
Only 2? Two people in almost 10 hours? Clearly, this place doesn"t understand anything about running a business.
"Well, what do you normally do when you are bored?" I asked.
"Nothing really. I usually just speak to whoever is on shift. We sometimes even play card games."
# # #
Poker, blackjack, cheat, old maid, you name it, we played it. Out of every game we played, I won 100% of them. I won every single game. it wasn"t even hard. She is really unlucky.
"Is there something you want to talk about?" Kaylee asked.
"Hmm… don"t know? What about you?"
"Don"t know. what about you?"
"Don"t know." Ok, this is going nowhere. We are just going to repeat those two words over and over again for the next 6 hours.
"Well," I said. "There is something I do want to ask. I wasn"t sure if I should but since we have nothing else to do, I guess I may as well open pandora"s box."
"Go for it," Kaylee said sitting calmly as if she expected this since she heard I"d be working here.
"It"s about you and Ethan. Why did you reject him? I thought you had feelings for him?" I asked as I watched her expression closely. It didn"t change, just the same smile looking at me with resting eyes.
"I knew you would ask that. I feel like I should explain myself but then I should say that I don"t have to tell you anything."
She isn"t wrong. I don"t know why people tell me things. Maybe my self-proclaimed t.i.tle as "king of gossip" is spreading.
"You don"t have to tell me," I said. "I just feel like Ethan should know."
"No, I"ll tell you and I don"t want you to tell him."
"Very well," I said, not that I fully understand why.
"A few nights before prom, I had the realisation that I didn"t really care for him. It was the same with Simon. I just loved the attention that they both gave me. I was lonely and didn"t care about their feelings. I thought I had feelings for him but I was mistaken, it was just me being lonely. I"m sorry I lead him on, but I can"t change how he feels. This was all just one misunderstanding. It"s not my fault that he feels that way, I just kinda acted as I cared."
I didn"t respond to her. Not because I was upset with her, but because I didn"t know what to say. What could I say? It was too difficult to figure this all out. It was like some complex puzzle that hadn"t been solved by anyone. Grrrr, why is love so difficult?
"Ok," I said. "I think I understand."
"That"s good-"
"But," I interrupted. "I think you should take back what you said about acting as you cared. Ethan tried his hardest to get you to fall for him. He struggled every day, doing everything he can to get it to work out. Even when he failed he tried again with a smile. I can"t speak for Simon, but I can speak for Ethan. Ethan has never loved someone as he loves you, and honestly, I don"t care if you are my friend or the guy my best friend loves when you say stuff like that, and throw away all his hard work and feel like they never mattered, it p.i.s.ses me off."
Kaylee looked at me with a smile. I was expecting to be slapped or hit but whatever, I don"t have anything else to say at this moment.
"Maybe you are right," Kaylee said as she walked closer. "But what about you? No one wants to be lonely."
She walked up to me and put her hand on my chest and slowly walked around me whispering into my ear. "I don"t want to be lonely, do you?"
I pushed Kaylee away from behind me. I saw her red eyes and the tears that slowly rolled down, but I didn"t care. Maybe if Ethan was here he would probably care, but I"m not him.
"I never took you for a girl like that," I said.
"Like what?" She replied.
"When I first met you, I was worried about what you would do to Ethan, but as I saw nothing happen I thought I should trust you. I thought you would make him happy. I can see I was wrong."
"What are you talking about?" She said trying to walk close again.
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"I"m not going to force you and Ethan together. That"s for you to decide. If I"m being honest, your current att.i.tude towards the situation is p.i.s.sing me off. I"m going to forget this conversation ever happened. I wish you would take this situation more seriously. If you want to reject Ethan just tell him. Why have you not told him straight? I thought you were confident that you were just lonely?"
"SHUT UP!" She screamed as her face turned red. "I KNOW ALRIGHT!? I HEARD IT ALL ALREADY! RUBY SAID THE SAME THING! It"s just. It"s just that I don"t know anymore." She stood breathing heavily with turns pouring down her face. Anyone could see it was frustrating for her.
"Well, why not try and listen," I said. "We have two years left. Maybe Ethan will make you fall for him within that time. That certainly sounds like something he"d do."
"Ha, yeah... right."
The remainder of the night was silent, we didn"t have a single customer and we both stayed as far apart as possible. We promised to forget about everything we spoke about. It took a while for her swollen eyes to return to normal, but there was no other way. It had to end like this. If it didn"t then we would end up at the same place. If Kaylee wants to keep acting the way she is, then I won"t stop her. I"ve always known she was good at acting. How much of her time with us was acting, I may never know. To say it was all an act was definitely a lie. I"m sure even she believes that.