One Shift, One Night

^Lyra^

The smell of cheap dish soap isn't just on my clothes. Including the number of shifts I've taken so far.

Here I am reminded that no matter how many times I wash my hands clean, I am what the world sees. That girl behind a counter with a dirty apron and a fake smile.

I leaned my head against the glass of the subway window, watching the Chicago skyline go by.

I stared at my own reflection. There was no amount of concealer to hide the shadows around those eyes and I had my hair pulled back in a bun so tight it was hurting me.

I was twenty-six. I was supposed to be completing a degree, or traveling, or at least having a drink with friends that didn’t only talk about their tips at the diner.

My mates did party but not me.

Instead, I was calculating the cost of feeding and bills to pay.

"Next stop, Damen," the overhead voice crackled.

I stood up, my knees cracking. Every joint in my body felt like it would fail.

I’d just finished a ten hour shift, and the sun was barely out. Most people were just waking up while I was just trying to make it to the front of my door.

Our apartment was on the third floor of a building that smelled. I fumbled with my keys, the cold from the keys on my shaking fingers. I just wanted three hours of sleep. Just three, before I had to get up, make sure Katherine was dressed for school, and head back for the lunch rush.

The moment I stepped inside, the heavy silence of the apartment told me I wasn't going to get those three hours.

"You’re late," a voice snapped from the tiny kitchen table.

I didn't even look up as I kicked off my sneakers. "Good morning to you too, Kat. I took an extra two hours of floor cleaning. It pays time and a half."

Katherine sat there, her blonde hair, the same color as our mother’s perfectly straightened, her arms crossed over her chest.

At fifteen, she had learned the habit of looking at me like I was a bug she’d found at the bottom of her shoe.

"The field trip deposit was due yesterday, Lyra," she said.

"Everyone else in my class turned theirs in. The teacher called me out in front of everyone. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that is?"

I dropped my bag on the counter "I told you, Kat. I’m working on it. The rent went up this month, and the utility bill was—"

"I don't care about the utility bill!" she yelled, standing up so fast her chair scraped harshly against the floor.

"All you ever talk about is bills! I’m fifteen! I’m supposed to be going to the museum with my friends, not staying back in the library like some charity case because my sister can’t manage a bank account."

I felt the familiar sting in the back of my throat. The "charity case" comment hit a nerve I tried to keep buried.

Since Mom and Dad’s car crashed on that bridge four years ago, I have been everything. I was the mother, the father, the provider, the everything.

"I am doing my best," I said, my voice coming off low. "I am one person, Katherine. One person working a job where people yell at me because their eggs aren't runny enough. I am paying for your private school tuition because Mom wanted you to have a better chance than I did. Do you know how much that costs?"

"Then get a better job!" she screamed.

"Stop being just some common waitress! It’s pathetic, Lyra. You’re twenty-six and you smell like a deep fryer. You think this is what they wanted for us? For you to be a failure and for me to be the girl who can’t afford a twenty-dollar bus trip?"

The word ‘failure’ hung in the air, thick and suffocating.

I looked at her. She looked so much like Mom it hurt to breathe.

But the sweetness was gone, replaced by a bitter resentment that I didn't know how to fix. I wanted to tell her that I gave up my own dreams so she could keep hers.

I wanted to tell her that I hadn't bought a new pair of shoes in three years so she could have the right sneakers for gym class.

But I just felt empty.

"Go to school, Kat," I whispered.

"I need the money," she demanded, holding out her hand.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of notes, my tips from the night. I counted out thirty dollars, leaving myself with barely enough for the train tomorrow. I slid it across the table.

She snatched it up without a thank you. "Is that it? I still need the second installment for the spring formal."

"Go. To. School," I repeated, my voice cracking.

She rolled her eyes, grabbed her backpack, and slammed the front door so hard the framed photo of our parents on the mantel shifted to the side.

I walked over and straightened the photo. They were smiling, standing in front of a house we no longer owned, in a life that felt like a movie I’d seen a long time ago.

"I'm trying," I whispered. "I'm really trying."

I didn't sleep. I couldn't.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the sound of the mailbox, more late notices, more demands for money I didn't have.

Katherine’s tuition was three weeks behind. If I didn't get the dean of students two thousand dollars by Friday, she’d be expelled.

By the time 11 PM rolled around again, I was back in the locker room of ‘The Silver Spoon diner ’, tying the strings of my apron. My hands were steady, but my mind was in chaos.

The diner was quiet for a Tuesday. The neon 'OPEN' sign hummed. I wiped the same section of the counter over and over again, watching the rain start to smear across the front windows.

Chicago at 2 AM is a graveyard for the lonely. It’s for the night-shift nurses, the cab drivers, and the people who have nowhere else to go.

I was tired of being the girl who had nowhere to go.

I looked at my reflection in the chrome of the milkshake machine.

‘Just some common waitress.’ Katherine’s voice echoed in my head. ‘Pathetic.’

I grabbed a rag and moved to the far end of the counter, near the window. I watched the expensive cars splash through the puddles on the street, headed toward the high rises where the "real" people lived.

The people who didn't have to choose between a bus pass and a field trip.

I felt a strange, empty sensation in my chest. A realization that I was disappearing. If I stayed here, in this debt and screaming teenagers, there would be nothing left of Lyra Olson by the time I was thirty.

I needed one night. Just one night where I wasn't a sister, or a waitress, or an orphan.

I didn't know that the universe was listening.

The bell above the door chimed. A sharp sound.

I didn't look up immediately. "Take a seat anywhere, hon. I’ll be with you in a sec."

"I was told this place had the best coffee around here at this hour," a voice said.

This voice did not sound like it was from here. It was nice and deep.

I looked up, pushing a stray lock of hair out of my face.

Standing by the door was a man who looked like he had walked off the set of a high fashion shoot and got lost in the wrong part of town.

His suit was dark and cut so perfectly it made everyone else in the room look like they were wearing rags.

He wasn't wearing a tie, his collar was open, and his dark hair was slightly a mess. He must have spent the last hour running his fingers through it in frustration.

But it was his eyes that stopped me. They were piercing, icy blue, and they looked at the diner with a mixture of exhaustion and boredom.

He was the kind of man I usually hated. Rich. Arrogant. Untouchable.

But tonight, looking at him, I didn't feel hate. I felt a sudden defiance.

"Who told you that?" I asked, leaning my elbows on the counter. "Because they lied. Our coffee tastes terrible. Like regret. But it's hot."

The man paused, his hand halfway to pulling out a stool. A slow, surprised smirk spread across his face, the first crack in his demeanor.

"Regret," he repeated, finally sitting down. "Well. At least you’re honest. I’ve had enough lies today to last a lifetime. I’ll take a double cup of the regret, please."

I grabbed a clean cup. As I poured the dark liquid, I realized my heart was beating too fast.

This was the shift. This was the night. And I had no idea that the man sitting across from me was about to burn my entire world down.