Tied Against Fate

Chapter 2: Five Years Later

I hate these kinds of people, I thought to myself as I tried to calm down the woman at the front desk of the hotel I work at. She was screaming at me, saying that the service here was unacceptable when I had done nothing wrong. I wanted to just scream right back at her and get security to kick her out, but I had to deal with this calmly. I didn't want to be fired. 

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"Ma'am," I said calmly, "May I please ask what you find so unsatisfactory with our hotel?" She just continued screaming something about wanting to speak to my superior. Eventually, after about five more minutes of this, she realized she was getting nowhere. 

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"I'm leaving you a one star review on Yelp!" She yelled over her shoulder as she stomped out the door. Her purse got stuck on the door handle and I had to cover my mouth with my hand to keep myself from laughing as she had to walk back a little bit, rip it off, and continue walking away in a huff. 

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"Yeesh," I heard a voice say. I turned to see my coworker Jamie standing behind me. "Well, I'm glad my shift hasn't started yet."

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"And I'm glad mine ends in..." I clicked the power button on my phone to see the time. "Two minutes! Thank goodness. I'm gonna go get changed." I made my way back to the employee restroom so I could change out of the hotel employee uniform.

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I met Jamie back out at the front desk so I could say goodbye to them before I went home for the night. We were good friends, but unfortunately, they clocked in when I clocked out, so we never were working at the same time. 

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"Text me tomorrow, bitch," Jamie said as I made my way to the door. I shot them a loving middle finger and flung the doors open to freedom. The cold night air hit me like an ocean wave after the stale air of the Pink Dreams' lobby. 

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It was 11:37 p.m. when I left work. Mom and her new boyfriend John wouldn't be home yet. Good. I didn't want to deal with them today. My mom had finally found her soulmate, John, at a bar about a year ago. Before she met him, my mom was mostly kind. She had her moments. Now, she was just mean. She criticized everything I did, and she always chose John over me and Jared. At this point, she basically neglected us all because John didn't like kids. 

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I was twenty one at this point, but I still lived with my parents because the housing in California was crazy expensive. Definitely nothing I could pay for with my current job. I wanted to just stay with my dad, but I didn't want to offend my mother, or she might do something drastic. The one time I tried to say I didn't want to stay with her anymore, she threatened to kill herself. I really do think she would have done it. She's gone mad, and I don't know if I can help her. 

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I pushed the button on my key fob and my car beeped a few feet away from me. 

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I hopped into the driver's seat and plugged my phone into the AUX. I pressed shuffle on my Stray Kids playlist and Hellevator started blasting through the speakers. As Seungmin's heavenly vocals filled the small space of my car, I smiled and sang along as I drove home. The city lights were almost unbearably bright against the night sky, especially so with my astigmatism. I turned my headlights off, put the car in park, and shut it off, hoping I hadn't woken up Jared. He had gone to bed hours ago, because he had the usual nine to five day job. 

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When I walked through the door, I found myself overwhelmed by thirst, so I poured myself a cup of water and chugged it. I guess my soulmate was hella thirsty, I thought as I put the water jug back in the fridge. One of the connections with my soulmate is that when they drink something, I need to drink the same thing they did, and I can't drink any other time. It's quite the nuisance when I just exercised and I can't have any water. 

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After that, I got to my room, changed into my pajamas, 

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