I’m fine.
Everything is fine.
I am definitely not panicking.
I pour coffee into my cracked mug and lean against the counter, staring at the chipped tile backsplash I already pay nine hundred and fifty dollars a month for like it personally betrayed me, because I think it did. In the amount of three hundred additional dollars.
Twelve hundred and fifty dollars a month total next month? I do the math automatically, numbers popping through my head at random. Tips have been decent lately, but not consistent enough to count on. The extra shifts I pick up help from time to time, but not enough.
I grab a pen and flip open the notebook that lives permanently on my counter and throw myself into budget mode because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my adult life, it’s that feelings don’t solve problems. Numbers do.
Rent.
Utilities.
Phone.
Insurance.
Food.
My pen digs into the paper as I scratch out numbers that refuse to cooperate and the calculator app on my phone mocks me with its cold precision. No matter how I shuffle the columns, I’m still short and no matter how hard I work or how many shifts I take at the bar, it’s never going to be enough. My jaw tightens until something cracks and a tear threatens but I blink it back viciously.
“Get a grip Sutton. People deal with worse,” I mutter, leaning my head back and releasing a frustrated sigh. “I’m not broke and I’m not homeless…yet.”
This is fine.
It has to be.
I’ll figure something out.
I don’t have much of a choice and in the grand scheme of my life, I suppose I’ve dealt with worse. I run my thumb along the rim of the chipped mug, pressing hard enough to hurt, the pain anchoring me to now, not then.
I open my laptop and pull up job listings, my reflection in the screen looking noticeably hollower than yesterday.
Bartender: already doing that, already exhausted.
Server: same money, different stress, same feeling of invisibility.
Retail: less tips, more hours, more pretending I’m okay.
I hover over “Administrative Assistant,” picturing myself in clothes I can’t afford, at a desk where I don’t belong. Sure, I might be a college graduate who can certainly handle a job like the one listed, but the minute anyone glances through my work experience, suddenly I’m just not the vibe they’re looking for.
Bar trash.
I guess that’s what I am now.
“Just a waitress…”
“…won’t amount to anything…”
I scroll anyway, my heart racing with each rejection before I even apply.
After an hour, my eyes are burning and my chest feels tight. Nothing has changed except the growing certainty that I’ve failed at something fundamental that everyone else seems to understand. I slam the laptop closed and then check to make sure I didn’t break it because God knows I can’t afford a new one.
“Okay,” I whisper, my voice cracking on the second syllable. “Time for work.” I grab my denim jacket, my hands shaking, and then spot Shepherd’s sweatshirt that he leant me afew nights ago. I don’t want to wear it to work because I’ll never hear the end of it from Cal, but I lift it to my face and inhale his scent. It smells faintly of whiskey and oranges and I have to remind myself not to sniff it too much or I’ll sniff away the only scent in this shithole of an apartment that I actually enjoy. I lay the sweatshirt over the kitchenette chair I found it on and then slip on my jacket ready to go about the rest of my day.
Work will help.
