Bad days don't always end badly

Believe it or not, as excited as I was about that blinking message, I forgot all about it. First we got slammed. Usually breakfast wasn’t bad – a trickle, then a stream, then a trickle again, but nothing we couldn’t manage. However, the bakery that usually took a good chunk of breakfast traffic was closed (I found out later that morning due to word of mouth that they had had a water line burst), so we got all their customers, plus our own. Normally after breakfast there’s a calm, but Sunny had neglected to tell me that she had already placed an ad for extra help and told people to come by to fill out an application – an application that we didn’t even have, by the way, because we only really hired students from the high school.

It also didn’t help that it seemed like every person who came in to apply was someone I would never in a million years hire. I know we’re just a pizza place, and I wasn’t expecting people to show up in a suit and tie or anything, but we had girls come in with shorts that didn’t cover their ass and guys who looked like they didn’t even bother to shower in the last century. One girl came in wearing her pajamas!

So, I had to talk to everyone who came in and take down information longhand – basic things like phone number, age, hours of availability and so on, until we got a break and I could get to the internet to try to find real application that could use.

Only I never got a break, because by now the lunch rush was here and we were slammed again because of the bakery (they made breads and served sandwiches at lunch.) I’m sure you all have had days like these – where everyone wants something NOW and you seem to just be going from one crises to another? Yeah. Basically anything that wasn’t the shop left my mind and I was running in survival mode.

By the time I DID get a break it was time to go home, and I barely remembered to even grab my cell phone before I left let alone remember to check it. All I wanted to do was go home and crawl in to bed. I didn’t want food, I didn’t want to talk, I wasn’t even sure I was going to change out of my clothes.

I had just thrown myself face down on my bed when I heard the knocking on the door. I wasn’t going to answer it, I wasn’t even sure I could open my eyes if I wanted too. However, the knocking continued – steady and unyielding.

It might be Sunny. I thought to myself. She was staying with Noah tonight but she often forgot things, including her keys. I shuffled to the door, trying to hold down the snark that was threatening to bubble out of my mouth as I threw open the door.

“John?” I asked, confused. Then my hand flew to my hair – which I had messily piled on top of my head while in the kitchen earlier, and I could only imagine how my face looks. “What is with you stopping by when I look like crap? Do you have some sort of ESP for that kind of thing?” I blurted before I could stop myself.
“You don’t look like crap.” He said, as if my outburst was totally normal. “You just look tired. And I am sorry about busting in, but you didn’t answer my texts or my phone call and I was worried I offended you.”

I opened the door wider and motioned for him to come in. “Tired is code word for shit, so when someone says you look tired, they mean you look like shit.”
“Or it could just mean that you look tired. You sound like you might be angry with me.”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s just been a long day. I’m sorry.” I said, collapsing in a chair.
“I can go, so you can go to sleep.”
Just then, my stomach growled loudly. John eyed it.
“Have you eaten?” He asked.
“Too tired to fix anything to eat, and I didn’t want to look at another pizza.”
“Let me make you something – least I can do for busting in on you like this.”
I wanted to protest. I wasn’t used to people taking care of me. But I didn’t. Instead I just nodded.
“That would be amazing. I have no idea what we have in the kitchen, Sunny grocery shops, but you can help yourself to whatever.”
“Why don’t you lay on the couch and veg out in front of the TV? I’m no gourmet, so don’t get your hopes up, but I won’t give you food poisoning either.”
“Peanut butter and jelly would be good at this point.” I said, shuffling over.
“Whoot. A girl with low standards is my kind of girl.” He said, winking at me before entering the kitchen.

I meant to lay down on the couch and veg like John had suggested. And I tried to do just that. But as soon as I laid down, my brain started buzzing. Why was he here, exactly? What did this mean? He must like me, he drove all the way over simply because he thought I was offended. And if he thought I was offended, he must have said something borderline offensive in his text. I popped off the couch and went in search of my phone.

I had two missed calls from him and three texts.
John: I deleted it so crazy chicks couldn’t facebook stalk me.
John: I was joking.
John: You aren’t mad at you?

I walked back into the livingroom and sat at the bar which had a window into the kitchen. John glanced up from where he was chopping vegetables.

“I thought I told you to veg out?”
I shrugged in response. “You thought I’d be offended by this?” I asked, holding up my phone.
“I hoped you wouldn’t be, but then when you didn’t answer, I wasn’t sure. I’ve had girls get crazier over less.”
“Oh-ho. This is a story I need to hear.” I said, propping my head up on my elbow.
He sighed in mock exasperation, but then smiled. “I have tons of stories, but I guess the most recent was this girl I had gone out with a couple of times. One night we were out at a bar, and she’s cracking jokes on me. Then she said something – I can’t even remember what she said or what I said, but I was able to turn the tables and crack on her. She got really quiet and started to cry. Even though I thought she was being a bit dramatic and over re-acting, I apologized. She excused herself to the restroom and when she came back she was composed and I thought she was OK. Until she took the butter knife and started trying to cut her wrists.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So basically you came over here to remove all my butter knives?”
“Yup.” He said, popping a chopped piece of broccoli into his mouth.
“So why did you really delete facebook?” I asked. “Was it really crazy girls stalking you?”
“Kind of.” He said, turning to drop the vegetables into a hot pan where they sizzled.
“Care to elaborate?” I asked.
“It was a year or so ago, and I had just returned back here from a visit from home. Some girl I went to high school with kept texting me asking if I had checked my facebook page yet. I hadn’t, I had just gotten home. She just kept bugging me. I thought maybe she had shared a cool picture or had some news – I don’t know, maybe she was pregnant or getting married. Nope. She had just written on my wall that she missed me. That was it. I got like, seven texts from her to check my wall for that. So I deactivated my account and haven’t been back since. People want to talk to me, they can call.”
“But how will they see all the pictures your friend took of you while you were drunk?” I asked, smirking.
“I don’t get drunk. So that’s a moot point.” He set a steaming plate of stir fry in front of me.
“This smells amazing.”

We didn’t end up talking much during dinner. I was hungrier than I thought and I was too busy inhaling my food. John watched me, impressed when I finished in what felt like mere minutes after setting the food in front of me.

“Did it taste good?” He asked, an amused smile on his lips.
I nodded. “Sorry. Normally I chew.” I said, slightly embarrassed.

He finished his not long after I finished mine and placed the plates in the sink.

“I can get on, so you can go back to sleep. If you want.”

The way he said it, I knew he didn’t want to go. And to be honest, I didn’t really want him to go either. It was a weird feeling. I was used to being on my own. Sure, I lived with Sunny and she was around a lot, but she also had Noah and there were chunks of time where she was with him and I was alone. If you had asked me before John had come over I would have told you that I LIKED being left alone. But thinking of him leaving and me being alone suddenly felt… Well, lonely.

“You can stay. I mean, if you want. I’m not up for much, but we can watch some TV. The blu-ray player is in my room, we can go in there and watch something.”
“Sounds good. What are we watching?” He asked.
“I don’t care, you pick. I’m going to go change really quickly.”

He went over to our blu-ray collection, and when I came out of the bathroom, he had made himself comfortable. I crawled up on the bed, and he opened his arms. Without thinking, I crawled up and laid my head on his chest.

I didn’t even make it five minutes into the movie before I passed out.