Till Dawn (HS)

v*

If there was one thing Clara hated about the winter time, it was the annoyingly horrible impact it had on her poor car. She woke up Monday morning with a smile on her face (it may have had to do with the fact that she planned on stopping by to see a certain someone after work), but it was immediately tugged into a scowl when she got into her freezing cold car and attempted to start it.

"Dead battery," Clara groaned and leaned her head on the faux leather steering wheel after four unsuccessful attempts. Her hands were folded together for warmth and she could hardly feel her own cheeks, skin numb from the icy air enveloping her. It was like everything was out to get her and she wasn't sure how much more she could take until she ended up pulling all her hair out and screaming at the top of her lungs.

Clara had to text her coworker, Karen, that she would be late to her shift. She was sure that Janice was going to give her a hard time for it when she finally got there after fixing her car. The high pitched voice was already sounding in her ears as Clara took out her phone, metal cold against her fingers, and rang up the mechanics. She waited for about an hour, sitting in the car with her arms wrapped around herself and with the subtle wish that there was another pair of arms there to keep her warm.

By the time Clara's car was up and running, it was already past one and her work shift was nearing its end. Just as she dreadfully envisioned, a pair of narrowed eyes watched her as she walked into the kitchen, tying her black apron around her waist with her head hung in embarrassment. Janice approached her with her arms crossed over her chest, that same scent of vomit-inducing perfume flooding Clara's nostrils.

"I heard about your car," Janice drew out, head tilting slightly to the side. "This winter is merciless, huh?"

"Yeah," Clara swallowed and nodded. It wasn't that she was intimidated or anything... well, she may have been. Janice had already shown how much power she had over Clara's job and how willing she was to exert it, so of course there was some unwanted fear coursing through her.

"There's only three hours left of your shift," Janice continued, voice different now. It was more clipped, less soft. "Why did you even bother coming?"

"I-" A sharp breath was inhaled through her mouth, which was hung open in apprehensiveness. Clara felt the urge to grab a pot of boiling water from one of the stove tops and pour it on her head.

"Whatever," Janice rolled her eyes, her artificial smile nowhere to be found for the first time since Clara had started working with her. "Table nine needs to be taken care of."

The moment she turned around, Clara scowled at her backside and glared at her with such intensity, she hoped it would burn a hole right through her flesh. Clara needed to take deep breaths consistently at work these days in order to push through it, so she did just that while pulling her hair back and ambling out of the small kitchen to collect the dirty dishes from table nine. Even though work lasted only a few hours that day, it felt like an eternity of walking back and forth between the kitchen and tables, her arms aching from the weight of the plates splayed across them. When she was finally finished, her arms felt so sore that she physically couldn't bring herself to lift them up much while she undressed in the bathroom, putting on her warmer clothes, with her weak limbs dangling uselessly at her sides. She wasn't sure how much more of washing dishes she could take until she physically and mentally imploded.

Liam was leaning against her car when she left the restaurant. He didn't notice her presence until she walked up to him, her eyebrow raised in confusion but a smile on her face nonetheless. The sound of her boots pressing into the icy snow caused his head to snap up, and a radiant gleam in his brown eyes that swelled at the sight of her. She looked absolutely beautiful, as always of course, but there was something so endearing about seeing her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and her eyelids weighted down from exhaust. She looked like a sleepy, disgruntled kitten.