AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you done with your conspiracy theorizing?! Can we talk about my thing now? Great. So, as I was saying, a few days ago, Evan and I had breakfast after one of his super long shifts at the hospital.”
“Was it long because they were doing experiments?”
“STOP!” both Larisa and I tell Jo, before realizing that she was just joking this time. And now she’s laughing at us.
“Wow, you two are so easy … anyway, go on.”
“So, we were having breakfast and he brought up the marriage pact,” I tell them.
“What do you mean he brought it up?”
“Well, he asked me if I remember when we made it in high school, and if I’ve ever considered honoring it.”
“Shut up!” Larisa says, and just as her words come out, I hear a crash of glass and metal.
Behind us, Carol had just dropped a bottle of perfume and it’s now shattered on the floor, leaving behind an oily mess of amber liquid and shards of glass.
In an instant, Mr. Doyle’s nasally voice comes from behind, yelling at her—at both of us. “Now look what you did! You two girls are absolutely incompetent—the worst employees I’ve ever had! That is coming out of both your paychecks!”
“Me? What did I do? I wasn’t even near her!” I tell him.
“You were not paying attention! You never pay attention!!! You don’t do your job properly, and now look what happened! You’re paying for this!”
“Alright, alright, let’s calm down, sir,” Jo says. “First of all, I need you to stop yelling at these ladies. They are women and they’re your employees. This is no way to treat them. Have I made myself clear? And, second of all, I will pay for the bottle of perfume. There. Problem solved. Now, stop before that mustache flies off your face and there’s one more thing around here that we need to throw in the trash.”
I have to stifle my laughter as she delivers him this final blow.
I can see that Mr. Doyle wants to fight back, but he can’t. He’s in the wrong and doesn’t want to antagonize the clearly rich customer even further.
As a result, he turns to Carol and me. “You two! Clean this up. This place smells like toilet cleaner!”
After he disappears into the back, Carol and I can breathe again.
“Guys, let me go and get a mop to clean this up. I’ll be right back. Then we can try out some makeup, okay?” I say, taking a few steps away from them.
That’s when I notice something entirely weird.
My vision grows somewhat distorted and the view I have of the beauty shop becomes lopsided—as if someone has turned it on its side somehow.
The shelves are on their side, and even the ceiling, with its awful florescent lights, is facing the wrong way.
I’m aware that all around me, my friends, as well as Carol, have started to scream.
And now, they’re hovering above me, their hands reaching for me.
Questions come my way, but I can’t exactly make out their meaning, even though I try my hardest.
Slowly, a blinding pain starts to radiate through my left side, starting from my left arm and all the way up to my shoulder, ending with the back of my head.
With my right hand, I feel around and notice that I’m now lying on the cold floor, and there’s shards of the perfume bottle all around me.
It’s weird, because I have no recollection of slipping and falling in the oily mess.
But the pain at the back of my head is getting stronger and stronger.
Evan’s face swims through my mind’s eye, and I wish he was here with me. Not just because he’s a doctor and he would surely know what to do at this moment, but because … it’s Evan. I want him here. I want him to hold my hand. To kiss my forehead and tell me that everything will be fine.
I realize that I’m afraid.
