Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. Today's post is a bit different than anything I've posted before. I want to write a book and I wanted to share what I have so far. Any and all feedback would be appreciated, so please leave a comment below if you read it!
Abbie stood in line nervously at Starbucks, lost in a sea of suits, waiting to order her drink. The barista was a boy. An attractive one. She had nothing against male baristas. They just made her nervous. She seemed to mess her order up more frequently when it was a male. Plus, she was not her most confident self that afternoon. Her morning had been frantic and she hadn't had time to apply even a drop of makeup.
The line dwindled quickly and suddenly she was face to face with her fear: the hot barista.
"Hi." He said, smiling through dazzling white teeth. "What can I get you?"
"Can I please get a light mocha-frap?"
"Sure, we'll get that started for you." The barista said as she slid her card.
"Oh wait. I actually have a free drink. Can I use that please?" She asked, feeling guilty at messing up her order and making the baristas life harder.
"Sure, I just have to ring it up again,"
"I'm sorry." Abbie guiltily tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear.
"Don't even worry about it." He stopped paying attention to the register and started paying attention to her. He gazed at her with piercing blue eyes, amusement dancing behind them. "That is like the least ridiculous thing I've had to deal with all day."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm really sorry people feel the need to make your job harder."
"Thanks. So, your free drink, is it a birthday drink?"
"Yes." Abbie nodded slightly. "My birthday was last Friday. I turned nineteen."
"Well Happy Birthday!"
She couldn't decide if he was flirting with her, but she knew how to find out. He was definitely giving her extra attention, which gave her the confidence to stick her chest out and flip her hair back,
"Thanks. You know who didn't wish me a happy birthday? My boyfriend. He forgot, then dumped me over text." Abbie laughed. As if it was a fun story. As if she hadn't spent all weekend crying. As if she hadn't liked him as much as she did. As if anything felt okay.
She realized that in some part of the story she had looked down and was staring at her shoes. She lifted her chin to look at his face. His mouth was ajar, and he looked shocked at her story. Good, she thought, a boy with a soul. Or at least more soul than the last one.
"Are you serious?" He asked.
All she could do was mutter a meek "yeah."
Anymore of a response than that and she may reveal how sad she really was. The tears could not flow. Not here, not now.
"That's not right. You deserve to be treated to a proper birthday. If you want to hangout sometime, I'd love to be the guy to do it. Can I get your number?" He handed her a piece of receipt paper and scribbled down her number.
"Aren't baristas not supposed to hit on people? Can't you get fired for this?"
"I'm not a barista. I'm a person who works as a barista. I can do what I want."
Abbie laughed and handed him the paper. Then, with her frappuccino in her hand and a sense that everything would finally be okay in her heart, she walked out of the store.
She walked straight home to her apartment that she shared with two roommates and was warmly welcomed home by Giselle. At least, she got as warm a welcome as Giselle gives anyone.
"Boys are like purses!" Giselle snorted from the couch, where she lay sprawled out, without any pants or a bra. She had an almost overflowing glass of champagne in her hand. She was watching reruns of The Hills. Even though The Hills had been cancelled long ago Giselle still insisted on having a marathon of old episodes at least a couple times a month. She said it was because Lauren Conrad was her role model and an infinite pool of wisdom, yet everyone knew it was really to mock Conrad's alleged wisdom and wallow about not getting a publishing deal.
"What? You disagree?" Abbie asked, laying down on the couch next to Giselle and preparing herself for whatever rant was about to wash over the apartment.
"Boys are nothing like purses! Purses are dependable, expensive, and necessary for life. Boys are unreliable and irrelevant. Boys are like eggs and toilet paper, cheaper by the dozen, easily ruined and even easier to replace."
Abbie chocked on her own glass of champagne. Despite her anger, Giselle was hilarious when she went on these tangents. Her cynical attitude was concerning, yet comforting after Abbie's breakup. It was nice to be reminded that everyone felt the same way,
"Giselle! For fuck's sake you're only twenty! Don't you think that's a bit young to be this negative?"
"What can I say? I've always been an early bloomer."
Abbie chocked again, remembering how true this was. Giselle had rocked a 34DD Freshman year of High School. Boys took notice, especially Adam Bower. He had been Giselle's first pit stop on her journey of bad boyfriends, if you could even call him that. Adam seduced her, then took her virginity (along with her faith in men) and humiliated her a year later, when he dumped her. Toward the start of their relationship she had made him a seductive video of her performing a striptease in the boys locker room. He ended things by posting it to his FaceBook wall, along with the very tasteful slogan "I'm done with this slut." Giselle then became the laughing stock of the school. Things got so bad she even went to the school counselor and begged for help. The awful counselor suspended her for filming the video on school property, and Adam got off scar free.
The video went viral, which ultimately landed Giselle a modeling career. She had been the face for multiple lingerie campaigns and guest-starred in a few sitcoms. Her modeling career had gone well, her writing career not so much.
"Today at my photo shoot the photographer asked me out."
"Well? Are you going to go?" Abbie asked hopefully.
"No."
"Giselle, I get that you're jaded, but you aren't helping yourself by saying no to every guy."
"He was sixty-five."
"Oh. Okay you're allowed to say no if a sixty-five year old asks you out." Abbie said with a nod.
"What about a sixty-four year old?" Giselle asked the sarcastically.
"Only fi he has money." Abbie said firmly yet jokingly. The two laughed so hard they collapsed on top of each other and spilled their champagne. They didn't care. As long as they had each other they didn't care about spilled milk, spilled champagne, or mean boys. As long as they had each other, like they always had each other, everything would be okay.
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