"This is going to be a long day." Thirty five minutes. Dola had been to work for thirty five minutes and she already had to 'go check in the back' to excuse herself from a riveting conversation about drain cleaner brands to make her way to the bathroom just to squat down in one of the poorly cleaned employee stalls and press her clammy fingers to her aching temples.
The older she got the less ideal pulling an all-nighter was. The two layers of hastily applied concealer and multiple cups of coffee she'd had that morning did very little in terms of helping her look and feel like anything other than a zombie, but was doing wonders for her anxiety. For a moment she wondered if the overwhelming exhaustion was from the two contracts she'd signed, but even she knew that was probably not it. She felt like a 2D character trying to fit into a 3D world without being found out and that feeling was honestly doing nothing for the snowball of anxiety that had been picking up speed and size as it rolled around inside of her.

That morning when she'd left the house at 6 a.m to venture down to the bakery that Fylson was always frequenting on his ungodly early morning adventures being the early morning freak that he was, she'd felt good about her efforts. As she bought the breakfast spread, she'd felt like maybe damn near emptying her bank account on bougie baked goods and mediocre boxed coffee would earn some points back in her direction and to some extent she felt like it might have. Or it didn't. She couldn't tell when she was so tired, but at least she didn't feel that same squeeze of tension and anger that had been lingering between them all from the night before.

She'd really messed up. She'd let Fylson down, let Eirlan down, let herself down, let the mozzarella stick that she never got to finish down-

No, that was not the line of thinking she needed to go down right now, what was done was done and she didn't have time to start crying. Again. Dola had already been away from the customer service desk for five minutes, she was sure someone was going to be calling for her on the headset any moment now and the last thing she needed was puffy, red rimmed, raccoon eyes.

Pushing down the incessant empty aching ball of anxiety in her stomach, Dola stood upright, squared her shoulders and stepped out of the bathroom stall to wash her clammy hands with cool water and look herself in the eyes.

"Let it go," She murmured the line she'd seen on Instagram the week before quietly to herself, pulling a shaky breath in and squeezing her hands into a ball so tight that her nails dug into her palm, "or be dragged." She exhaled, releasing her fists and looking into the reflection of her tired eyes, "What's done is done. Whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen." She told herself, wishing it was more helpful than it was, but knowing that it was going to have to be enough to plaster on a smile for another, oh god, seven hours and eighteen minutes. Not that she was counting.

"Dola, we need you up front, a customer says they have been waiting on you for twenty minutes to get her drain cleaner, what's the holdup?" Her boss, Harold was demanding over the static of what had to the cheapest headsets possible on this planet of Earth.

"Oh, please apologize to her, I went looking in the back for the drain cleaner five minutes ago and didn't find any, and got pulled aside by another customer on my way back. Please tell her that we don't have any and that I'm sorry for the wait." Dola replied in her sweetest customer service voice, being sure to paint out that she hasn't been away for long at all and fighting the urge to upchuck at her own sickly sweet tone.

A long moment passed before Harold got back on the walkie and warned her not to take so long checking in the back again and to hurry back to customer service since he shouldn't have to do her job. Gag.

Forcing a smile into her voice she assured him that she'd be back up front shortly, despite not having moved an inch.

He would survive for another two minutes.

Harold was such a pain in the ass. The job wasn't actually that bad aside from Harold with his micromanaging and throwing his weight around in the way that only someone who loved power, no matter how insignificant, did. His being there was a bit of a buzz kill, but before Harold there was Peter, before Peter there was Guss and before Guss there was Mike. Dola had only been there for three years and in that time she'd seen all of those miserable men take over that failing store with ambitions to move onto bigger and better places the second they could put 'Store Manager' on their resume and get scouted to leave the florescent lights of Superior mart in the dust along with all of it's employees.

Of course she was never meant to be here long enough to meet this steam of these hapless managers.

When Dola had started at Superior Mart as a cashier, she'd been just 'passing through town' and 'needing a side gig to pay some bills before things worked themselves out'. Again, that was three years again when she'd blown into town with some guy whose name she couldn't remember now and a plan on how to get her life back on track. Now here she was as a manager, guy-less, and one year into a three year lease on the same dingy little apartment that she'd also sworn would be temporary.

Then she died.

Twice.

And now she was locked into two dubious contracts that she didn't understand, but hey, it could be worse right? She wasn't sure how, but she was sure someone in that very building she worked in had it worse. She'd like to think it was Harold, that his life was miserable and that was the only reason he made her life miserable, she doubted it, but-

"What's this? A silent pep talk?" Dola jumped so hard that she hit her hand on the sink with an echoing crack that made both her and the new addition to the scene wince.

"Gah! Ashleigh, how long were you standing there!?" Dola ground out through clenched teeth as she nursed her throbbing hand against her chest.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I've been here for a while now watching you zone out at your reflection in the mirror. Long enough to know you weren't looking for any doggone drain cleaner." Ashleigh replied hovering nearby and trying to look closer at Dola's throbbing hand, "You okay though, hon?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Dola let out the breath she'd been holding between her still clenched teeth as the pain began to subside, "My hand will survive." She laughed weakly, waving it around to prove her point.

"That's good." Ashleigh nodded for a moment before looking at Dola more thoughtfully, "Are you good is the question though." She looked Dola in the eye in a way that told Dola she was sure that her manager was cracking up.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Long night,"Ashleigh's eyes lit up and Dola just knew she was going to ask if it had something to do with Fylson, "I have some company over," Ashleigh pursed her lips looking disappointed, "the night ran longer than I thought it would have and I'm just a little tired."

"Well I guess that explains why you've come to work more out of it than usual two days in a row now." Ashleigh chuckled to herself, "Tell your company to stop taking you out drinking and let you get some rest because you being tired means I have to work harder and I can't be having that." It was Dola's turn to laugh at that.

"Aye aye." Dola gave her a little salute, not sure why she did that... not sure why she said that, it made her cringe almost as soon as she did it, but Ashleigh only laughed in reply.

They both stood there a moment laughing quietly before the crackle of the overhead speakers that were spattered the building and bathrooms interrupted the first peaceful moment Dola had in about 48 hours.

"DOLA PLEASE RETURN TO CUSTOMER SERVICE, DOLA TO CUSTOMER SERVICE IMMEDIATELY." Harold's voice boomed over the speaker and she could all but hear the vein that popped up when he was mad, throbbing on his forehead.

"Guess I'm getting back to it." Dola thumbed to the cobweb covered beige speaker in the corner of the bathroom."

"Guess you should." Ashleigh shook her head, "That man has the patience of a saint doesn't he? What if you had the runs or something?"

Dola snorted, "Don't jinx me with that. See you out there." She waved before pushing out of the bathroom before Harold came to find her himself.

Feeling a little more centered, Dola began making her way to the front of the store. Everything was a mess, but when were things not a mess? If she thought about it, this might be the best mess she could find herself in because at least this one she wasn't stuck in alone, much like at this job. Working here wasn't great, but at least she had people like Ashleigh to give her a little pep talk here and there.

As she rounded the corner to get to the customer service desk and saw the line of customers that seemed to have materialized from no where in the near empty store and the red face of Harold as he flashed her a death glare, she took it all back. This job sucked, the next hour or so was going to suck, the chewing out she was going to get from stepping away from customer service after this rush sucked and most of all her life sucked.

This was going to be a long day after all.