Brianne & Dannon

2: kale me now

So, this sucks.

There's seven, six, five minutes until Kyla's shift officially starts, and her eyelids are so heavy she's not sure she'll be able to pick them up when her alarm goes off.

She wasn't even supposed to be here this early. She was supposed to sleep in. Take a shower. Actually eat a decent breakfast if there was anything left in the kitchen. Maybe—maybe—get rid of the nausea that's been clawing at her throat for weeks now.

Fricken Brendan.

The steering wheel digs into her forehead, growing more painful the harder she presses, but she doesn't have the energy to adjust her position. Besides, she doesn't have time to adjust—not if she wants to scrape out every millisecond of this power nap she's allowed herself.

The parking lot slips away, replaced with hazy images of a dream that hasn't found solid ground. She sinks deeper, deeper—

A blaring alarm slices through her consciousness, jolting her back to reality. She groans.

As predicted, her eyes refuse to open. Her alarm doesn't get the memo. "Oh my god, fine," she grumbles, fumbling blindly for her phone. Who let her choose a foghorn for the alarm sound? And why do they hate her? "Okay? Fine!"

Her fingers finally hit plastic. She pries her eyes open and yanks her phone by the edge of its casing, pulling it toward her chest, and— Yup, that was a mistake. The foghorn threatens to annihilate her eardrum. "I said f—"

She stabs the Stop button. Silence pierces the air. She sags, her eyes slipping shut.

Nope.

She squeezes her eyes so hard they hurt. And then she tosses open her door.

And if anyone saw her forget to unbuckle and try to launch out of the car only to get stopped by her seatbelt, no they didn't.

The fluorescent lights bear down on Kyla's head as she trudges into the building. As grocery stores go, Kale Me Now is cute. Exposed brick walls, wooden and chalkboard signs labeling areas, stained-wooden shelves.

Kyla has never hated a store more in her entire life.

The Pickup-and-Go section—basically just a built-in desk a few feet away from the self-checkout—looms over her as she approaches. The only consolation comes from the fact that it's Alvaro leaning against the counter, his cell phone propped against his ear.

"You're settled alright?" he asks the person on the other end of the line. He glances up, notices Kyla as she plops in front of the desk, and smiles. She returns the sentiment. "Okay. Come over for dinner if school doesn't kick your ass too hard. There will be posole. And reganadas for dessert." He wriggles his eyebrows like the person will be able to see, and Kyla snorts. "Okay. Good luck with your first day."

He hangs up, pockets his phone, and lets out a light sigh. "Catalina's friend," he says, even though Kyla had dutifully resisted the urge to ask. "Going through a rough time, though he'd never admit it. Just wanna make sure he knows I'm there, you know?"

She nods. It never fails to warm her, the lengths he goes to for his niece and her friends. It's one of the things that bonded them together despite their ten-year age difference: the fact that both had been shoved into parenthood before they were ready by parents who abandoned post.

Alvaro cocks a perfect eyebrow, taking her in. "You look dead," he says.

She huffs. "I look great. And you look..."

She narrows her eyes. He, as always, has the audacity to look like he stepped out of a magazine spread. Clear golden skin. A five o'clock shadow on sharp cheekbones. Styled brown curls on his head. "Fine, I guess," she says anyway.

"Highest of praise."

"You've got avocado on your collar."

"No, I don't."

"No, you don't."

His growing grin falters as his gaze catches on something over her shoulder. She tenses, turns.

Richard—un-affectionately nicknamed Dick when not in earshot—Hennings storms toward them, his sun-tanned fingers curled into fists. She forces her jaw to loosen. How was the most recent vacation to Florida? she wants to ask. It's your third this year, isn't it?

He's not even that tall—maybe five-foot-nine—but his glare makes her feel small. "Nichols," he says stiffly.

She resists the urge to curl into herself. She just got here. Her shift doesn't even start for another two minutes. She can't have done anything wrong.

"What's up?" she asks.

He jabs his pointer finger at her, a watch that's too expensive for their shitty pay on his wrist. "Somehow, your performance has gotten even worse."

She swallows bile. The thing is, she can't even argue. As her lethargy grows, so does the space between her pick times. It doesn't seem to matter how hard she pushes. "I—"

"What are you doing when you're picking?" he demands. "Channeling your inner turtle? Or perhaps a sloth?"

"I—"

"Pick up the pace, Nichols. This is the last warning before I take this higher. You hear me?"

She swallows and fights the need to blink herself steady. She nods—which definitely makes her swimming head worse, but at least he's huffing in resignation. He stalks back the way he came, and her eyes slip shut.

Dammit.

"Ky—"

She sends Alvaro the best smile she can manage. "I'm fine."

He frowns, eyebrows furrowed, but she ignores the uncertainty in his eyes and pushes behind the desk. She snags her assigned barcode scanner out of the drawer and yanks the desktop computer screen toward her.

A list of orders glares at her reproachfully, and honestly, same. A 96-item order being the most urgent? Come on.

"I can get that o—"

"All good." She loads it onto her scanner. "See you at the finish line."

She yanks a nearby cart and rushes into the main aisle despite the shelves insisting on blurring and teetering off-center. Just get through today without being fired.

It becomes her mantra. No idea how much it helps.

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See you next Friday! 🩵

Next up, school! How do we think the day is gonna go?