Control your emotions, Dex.
Lenny’s voice. Always there.
I spent years sitting across from him after too many fights, too many mistakes, listening to him explain my own brain like it was something that could be mapped out. Understood. Controlled. He always said I wasn’t broken, just wired differently, that noticing more, feeling more, wasn’t a weakness unless I let it be.
I never bought into that part.
To feel too much is a weakness.
All it ever did was drag me into things I didn’t ask for, make me care when it would’ve been easier not to.
So I learned to shut it down.
To keep it contained.
I only let myself care for family and friends. That’s it.
Everyone else stays on the outside.
Which means I shouldn’t be feeling anything at all when I look back at Lexy.
Shouldn’t be noticing the way her hands are still shaking.
Shouldn’t be registering the exhaustion in her eyes, the way she moves like she’s running on something close to empty.
And I definitely shouldn’t feel it pulling at me, slipping past every wall I’ve put up like it was never there to begin with.
It settles deep in my chest, tight and unwelcome, something I don’t have control over.
And I hate it.
I hate that she makes me notice.
I hate that she makes mefeel.
???
Alexis
My head spins every few minutes. A dull, pounding ache settles just above my eyes, spreading down the bridge of my nose. My throat burned this morning, but now it feels raw, scraped, every swallow a reminder that something is wrong. My nose will not stop running. My skin feels too hot, then too cold.
I know I have a fever. I do not need a thermometer to tell me that.
But I need this job. And I do not have money for Tylenol yet.
I just spilled my pathetic tips on the floor, coins scattering like they are mocking me, the sharp clatter still echoing in my head, and Dex’s annoyed stare drills into my back. I suck it up anyway, forcing my shoulders straight, pasting on my best smile for the customers and keeping myself moving before anything has a chance to show.
I am not a terrible waitress. I have been doing this since I was sixteen. But this stupid fever is what is making me weak, foggy, turning simple movements into calculations and making me second-guess myself, every small mistake stacking on top of the last until it feels like I am slipping further with every step.
I refuse to let it win.
“Excuse me, miss? Can we have two more beers?”
I turn toward the table and muster a smile. “Of course. Two beers coming right up.”
I move toward the bar, repeating the order in my head like a mantra so I do not forget, two beers, two beers, gripping the edge of the counter when another wave of dizziness hits, breathing through it slowly until the room settles back into place and the floor stops shifting beneath my feet.
I reach for the glasses, my fingers fumbling just barely, just enough to make my heart kick harder against my ribs.
