AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I open my mouth and I try to explain everything... the applications... the knock-backs...
“I know I was rejected, but I just want to double-check in person,” I say at the end of my little spiel in barely more than a whimper. “You understand? Why not hope? It could have been an error. Maybe I just need to talk to a friendly face.”
The teller checks her computer. She types loudly and slowly on her keyboard. Her face is unemotive.
My heart is beating a million times an hour.
“The system has automatically denied you,” she proclaims to me, reading the screen.
My heart rate somehow increases even more.
She’s not going to give me any empathy.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“I need the money,” I whisper. “I need it to get a proper divorce lawyer.”
“If the system has rejected you, then I’m afraid you are rejected,” she replies bluntly.
“Please. I need this. This is my last hope.”
The woman continues to peer at me through her glasses until she finally speaks.
“I’ll get the manager.”
Yeah, that does nothing to alleviate my heart rate.
The manager comes swiftly enough – a sweaty man in a too-tight suit. He doesn’t even acknowledge me as he slumps into the chair. He simply takes a long minute to read the computer screen with a big frown smeared across his face.
Yeah, this is really not helping.
And then he looks at me.
“You’ve been denied,” he flatly declares.
It’s all he says to me. It’s a worse sting than getting a spear thrown at you.
“I need this,” I plead with him. This is my last resort, and I am determined to leave here with at least something.
And I’m trying my best not to cry.
The manager shakes his head, hot sweat flying off onto the counter in front of me.
“It’s impossible to do anything on our end,” he mutters. “This is the extent of what we can do for you. Surely there’s another way for you to raise your funds?”
“There isn’t,” I squeak. “There’s no other way...”
“I can’t do anything for you,” the manager says. “I do apologize.”
And, with that, I know it’s the end of the road. I’ve hit the brick wall. I know when I’m defeated.
I nod at the manager and the teller.
And I leave. With nothing.
A retreat.
