It's My Mistake ~ PUBLISHED

Chapter 4

"So, did you get the job working in the nut-house?" my friend Olivia asked as I sat down at the table she had saved for us.

"Olivia!" I snapped. "You can't call it that! They prefer you calling it a school. It's for children with special needs."

I had met her after she finished work, she was already at the bar waiting for me.

It was relatively new bar, only opened up a few months ago and it had lots of good ratings already. We had been meaning to visit it for a while now. I realised when I first stepped in to find Olivia buried in her phone that I wished I had visited sooner.

It was ultra-modern. A bar down one side with dark marble looking counter-tops, a row of glass shelves with bottles neatly on display under a row of blue spotlights. The bar stools were a mix of black and gunmetal. There was a row of booth-style seats along the opposite side of the bar and high-rise round tables in the middle.

Olivia had taken up residence on one of the high-rise round tables. I had questioned her choice of table when there were clearly more comfortable seats in the booths, and she explained that she wanted to be seen in case a hot available guy walked in. I had to fight the urge to moan at her in disapproval as I sat down, but there would be no changing her mind.

"Whatever." Olivia shrugged. "So, did you get it? Or did you yell at the interviewing panel again?"

"Shut up," I said, shaking my head at her in slight annoyance. But she only giggled at me. "I only had it this morning."

I hadn't told Olivia the reason why I went into that line of work; working with either children with special needs or young adults with problems. I started off working with children, they were a little easier to handle. Well, they weren't really, but they were more innocent. That's what I liked about it, even though the work was hard. Working with teenagers who had drug and alcohol problems were a lot harder and depressing. That was why I decided to stay away from that line of work, and why, after the hotel interview mess up, I decided to go back to children.

But the reason I went into the line of work in the first place was because of my own mother. It sounds strange to say it out loud to people though; wanting to work with children with additional needs to feel close to my dead mother. I don't even think Olivia knows my mother died. I lose track with how many people I have had to correct, but never really initiating the conversation. It was too hard to bare sometimes.

"Yeah, but sometimes you can gauge how it went!" she pressed, leaning over the table while ignoring a young lad who was eyeing her up. Clearly he wasn't her type.

"Sometimes."

"Oh come on, tell me how it went!"

"Okay, it went terrible!"

"Oh God, really?"

"Yes, but I got a call back an hour later, asking me to start Monday."

"What!?" she half-asked, half-yelled in shock.

I laughed at her expression. "Basically I messed it up, mixed up two roles I had applied for. I thought I was being interviewed by this company that was just on the outskirts of London. But I wasn't, it was the one with the terrible website in the city, and I basically insulted the woman who was on the main page!"

"Oh my God, and they still gave you the job? They must have been desperate!"

"Oi!" I frowned at her. "No, I was just honest with her. I told her I had been applying for whatever I could, and that I'd tried to get out of social care but failed because I realised it wasn't for me. I said I realised I was better off in social care work and she just liked the fact I was honest—although that last bit was a lie. But, she must have given me a good word to those who make the decision."