assignment: juggling

The whistle on the steamer went off right next to her ear, and she dropped the cup she held out of surprise. Jumping back, so as to avoid marring her shiny black slip-resistant shoes with the hot milk, she crashed into her co-worker, smashing him into the counter.

“Watch out, will you Cara? Jeez, that’s the fifth thing you’ve dropped since your shift began.”

She didn’t know the co-worker’s name. It wasn’t like he was new or something… She was pretty sure this guy had been on staff at the coffee shop for at least a few months, she should have had plenty of time to get to know him… It was all Dante’s fault.

All of this was so much easier before she met him.

Cara felt a little dirty just thinking that. He was so important to her, she still didn’t know why, and she really didn’t want him to disappear. It’s true, things would be a lot simpler if it was all like it was before, but definitely not worth it…

“Hey! Freak! Are you gonna clean it up, or what?”

Cara rolled her eyes as she left the island to find some rags or something in the back to clean up the spilt milk (and if she ended up getting lost in the stockroom and sat down on an overturned box and caught a few minutes of a nap, all the better).

Everything about Dante just made her feel so TIRED. If only she could pin-point exactly what it was that drew her to him, she could cut it out and stamp on it and bury it in the dirt outside underneath the dumpster. Then maybe she could feel okay wishing him away sometimes. Only sometimes, though. Cara had a feeling that even if she DID manage to bury her feelings for Dante, they’d just come crawling back up through the earth like little zombies and chase after her trying to eat her brains. They would gather around her feet as she tried to run away and grab onto her ankles and trip her, and then they would all jump on her face trying to get at the tasty grey-matter behind her eyes and underneath her skull.

“Cara! The fuck are you doing?”

She looked up into the contorted face of her manager. Shit.

He sighed in clear and honest exasperation, pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers, “Just give me those towels and go home, will ya?”

Cara numbly stood up and handed over the white terry-cloth hand-towels she’d been hugging close to her chest as she sat on that damn overturned box daydreaming like an idiot.

“Am I- am I fired?” She worried her lower lip between her teeth, afraid of the answer.

“God, no. Just get out of here and go get some rest, alright? I’m tired of seeing you shuffle around here like the living-dead. Just be on time for your shift tomorrow, yeah? I may like you enough to put up with your shit, but I can’t speak for the big boss man…”

Cara nodded, feeling her blood-pressure level out a little, and mumbled her thanks to her incredibly gracious and understanding shift-manager, “Alright, I’ll be here…”

He held open the giant steel door leading out to the back of the building for her, and Cara stepped through, unthreading the strings of her apron. It was probably for the best she got sent home early, anyway… She really should be home for Dante.

assignment: facade

He was late. Was tonight the night?

She paced the little space in front of the door, curling her fingers into her palm to stop from turning the knob and running out to find him.

She’d found him once, she could do it again…

“No, just hold yourself together, Cara... He’ll be back. He always comes back.”

And it was true. He’d never once NOT COME HOME. He’d disappear for the majority of the day, until well after dark, and then he’d come dragging his feet back to the modest apartment they shared (in all honestly, calling it modest was being generous). His expression was always the same: haunted… pissed off… blank. And she’d always be there to make it better.

Always.

“Dante, where are you…?”

Cara went through the motions in her head: when he finally got home she would sit him down in the busted down recliner and she would run her hands over his shoulders. She would pull the tension out of his muscles if it killed her (he rarely did) and then she would make him a cup of tea to drink while she made something to eat for the two of them.

He never drank it.

She had to pull her hand off the doorknob once more, and she forced herself to walk to the back of the dingy and cold apartment all the way to the very back wall before she could allow herself to walk back to the living room and resume staring at the door. She counted backwards from thirty (why thirty?) and tried to make each breath successively longer and deeper than the one before it.

“Fuck! Dante, if you don’t walk in this door NOW I swear to god I am going to lose it!”

She really and truly hoped that it would work. It didn’t.

Cara dug her fingernails into her palm (a move she’d noticed Dante doing many a time before) and desperately tried not to cry. She sat down on the freezing and dusty wooden floor, with her back to the wall, facing away from the door so she wouldn’t have to see it NOT OPENING anymore. Something must have happened. Someone must have seen him. Maybe he was locked up downtown somewhere. Maybe somebody got to him first - a gang shooting, a drive-by… a mugging? Maybe HE was dead? Maybe he was never coming back and she’d never see him again… What would she do?

She’d lived her whole life just fine on her own before she met him… Could she really go back to that? Would she really have to? Wouldn’t he do whatever he could to come back to her? Wasn’t she important to him? She was all he had, of course he’d fight to keep that… So why wasn’t he home yet?

Cara fell asleep as she sat, with her knees drawn up to her chest. She had no way of knowing how long she was out, but she jerked awake the second she heard somebody scrabbling at the door. She was on her feet almost immediately and she tore at the chain holding the door closed and flipped the deadbolt allowing him to come inside.

“Dante! Where have you been?”

He stared down at her. There was something different about him tonight. He hadn’t killed, that wasn’t it… Something wild and desperate still hovered just beneath the surface, that hadn't changed...

“Dante, what happened?”

He didn’t answer her, he just stared a moment longer then moved past her to sit in the recliner. He pulled a crumpled pack of 100’s out of his pocket and pulled one out of the package before tossing the rest of them onto the overturned milk crate that stood in the center of their living room. Cara went to the kitchen and pulled a mug out of the strainer, filling it with a teabag and some hot water from the faucet. She brought it to him, setting it down alongside the squashed pack of cigarettes. She put her hands on his shoulders, and worked his muscles just as she’d imagined earlier in the evening. He paid no attention to her, made no move to indicate he even knew she was there, and just stared across the room at the cracked wall while pulling long drags from the stick held between his fingers. When she was finished, she picked up the remote and turned on the tv, setting the control on the arm of the chair he sat in, and returned to the kitchen to make him something to eat.

She was glad he was home.

prompt: tabloidesque

Hello there. There's nothing to see here. Just keep your eyes to the front, please. There's never anything exciting in this room, because, you see, there's never anybody here. So just please keep shuffling forward, make your way through that tiny door at the far end, if you will. Once you've made your way through you will find what you are looking for. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, just keep moving forward and all answers will be revealed. Pay no mind to what's beside you, or behind you; they can offer you nothing. Please ignore, as well, those before you. A neatly as you please, make your way quickly to the small door. Please, just keep moving forward.