“Fuck.” LA gritted his teeth. “Okay, I shouldn’t have gone all Karen on her. I’m in fucking pain, this sucks, and—”
“Wait, who’s Karen?”
“It’s just a fucking expression!”
“You owe her an apology.” Cass patted LA’s cheek. “You can reinvest your energy into something more positive right now! Talk to her like a human being who has real feelings and hey!”
“What?”
“I know you’re having a bad day, but think about how hers is probably going right now.”
LA made a face, guilt sitting like a rock in his gut. “Yeah, got it. I was a dick, but I didn’t mean to make her fucking cry.”
“Actions always have consequences, often that you can’t control. And guess what? You don’t get to control how other people feel about what you do. Even if your intention was not to hurt her, you still did.”
“Okay. Fine. What do I do?”
“Saying sorry is a good place to start.”
“Okay! Just unfuck time or whatever.”
“What’s the magic word?”
“Please unfuck time?”
Cass smiled and clapped, disappearing in a cloud of rainbow confetti.
Time moved once more and Anna was whimpering, cowering in her seat as if she expected LA to physically strike her.
“I’m sorry,” LA said earnestly. “All right? I shouldn’t have lost my temper and yelled and… I should not have been such a dick.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m having a pretty awful week, but that’s still no excuse to take that out on you.”
Anna blinked owlishly as she wiped at her tears. “You… Do you really mean that?”
“Yeah. I’m an asshole. A big one.” LA sighed. “Look, can we… Let’s start over, okay?”
“Okay.” Anne managed a little smile. “I really appreciate you apologizing. Heh, you might be the first customer who’s ever done that.”
“Well, I’m sorry for that too. ’Cause people are jerks.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not.” LA shook his head. “I had no right to blow up like that and hell, I hate it when people do that to me. Jobs are hard enough with shitty bosses and last minute bullshit without dealing with crap customers like me. So, please, I’m sorry.”
Anna perked up. “Hey, well, I have another job lined up. About to put in my two weeks and the only time I’ll have to deal with customers is on the phone.”
“That’s not so bad, right?”
“Better than being yelled at in person.”
LA cringed. “Yup.”
“Besides, if people get too nasty, I can just hang up on them!” Anna laughed as she typed on the computer. “Gonna go workwith a friend of my mom’s actually. It’s gonna be another office clerical kind of thing.”
“That sounds—” LA wanted to say sounds like a fucking nightmare because he was thinking of his own mother, but Anna looked happy, so he finished with, “Really nice!”
“Yeah. This job pays okay, but it’s stressful. So many giant dickheads.” Anna grinned sheepishly. “No offense.”
“Hey, I was being a giant dickhead. No offense taken.”
