And that… that betrayal might have hurt worse than the lies.
I stayed bent over the toilet, emotions rushing through making me hot, making me shiver. I stayed there until I had nothing left in my stomach before I shoved back and collapsed against the bathroom cupboards.
My apartment.
My job.
They’d handed me everything.
Now what did I have?
Nothing.
But I’d rebuilt my life, such as it’d been, before.
I’d do it again.
The squawking bell above the door startled me, making me jump as I stepped into Judith’s. It’d been four weeks since I was there, but it felt like a lifetime ago. The place looked the same, not that I’d expected anything to be drastically different since it’d probably all been the same since the sixties, but it felt different.
Maybe it was me that was different.
Regardless, my legs trembled as I headed toward the bar area where there was a bucket of silverware, cleaned from the look of it, and next to it were the napkins and paper rings. There were very few customers. An elderly couple sat at one table at the far end. At another table, a lone male with a beard more salt than pepper sipped on coffee and read the paper.
I collapsed onto a stool by the silverware and since Judith wasn’t out front, I started rolling it like I’d spent so many hours doing before during downtimes.
My eyes were red and scratchy. I’d cried for what felt like half the day before I picked myself off my bathroom floor and managed a shower and to change into clean clothes.
It’d taken effort to do the simplest tasks. My bones hurt and every muscle in my body ached but I’d managed.
In the past, when I’d run from Hudson, he’d chased me. I wasn’t going to stick around and wait for him to do so this time. And I hated that while I’d been getting dressed, I’d imagined him, only a few stories above me, probably pacing like a caged animal, wanting to come to me. Wanting to demand I give him time for his explanations and excuses.
He’d throw them all at my lap and expect forgiveness.
I knew him well enough to know that.
I had nothing to give him.
Not anymore.
Definitely, not yet.
So I fled to the only place I could think of that’d be open on Thanksgiving.
The doors to the kitchen swung open and Judith, carrying two pies, fresh from the oven based on the pumpkin and pecan aromas wafting into the air, stepped through. She wore the ugly ass uniform I’d always hated but tolerated. The putrid green color was muted with flour dust and there was a pumpkin filling stain on her white apron.
When her pies were in the front case, she closed the sliding glass door and wiped her hands on her apron. She didn’t even glance at me as she gruffly said, “Only employees can roll silverware and if memory serves, you quit working here.”
My hands, sitting atop a napkin with a setting inside, froze. “I figured I’d make myself useful while I waited for you.”
“Me?” She came to me then and swiped the setting from in front of me. With quick, but aging and plump hands, she rolled it in the blink of an eye and tossed it into the bucket holding other freshly rolled settings. “Did you come to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving?”
I stirred uneasily on my stool. Judith was gruff and rude, but I’d always assumed, somewhere, maybe somewhere deep, she’d liked me.
Perhaps I had that wrong.
“I came to ask for my job back,” I said quietly. My voice was hoarse from all the crying and even asking the question made me flinch in pain. If she wouldn’t do this, I’d have to call my parole officer, Ellen.
I didn’t want to do that yet. I needed more time before I went to her to ask for help. Things changed so quickly for me, and I knew she’d hadn’t been thrilled with everything, even if she’d told me she was proud of me.
Now, a part of me wondered—how much did she know? How did they know where I worked and went to school if they hadn’t reached out to Ellen to get that information?
If she’d known all of this… I didn’t know if I could handle another betrayal.
As I got lost in that thought, Judith went stone still. “Excuse me?”
My voice shook as I repeated myself. “I came to ask for my job back.”
She blinked once. Twice. “No.”
I jolted in my seat. “What?”
Judith shook her head and came to me then. She slid plastic buckets out of the way so harshly the clanging of silverware rattled the entire diner. Napkins flew into the air and the paper wraps that held the rolls together scattered to the floor.
“Why not?”
Her nose scrunched and her gaze flicked over mine before she huffed and pushed off the counter. “You don’t belong here. You’re too good to be wasting time, earning practically nothing at a place like this. That’s why I didn’t let you finish those weeks before and that’s why you’re not coming back. You got something better to go do, so if no one else is going to make you, I am.”
My chin shook as she spoke and a strange, warm sensation prickled my skin. She… believed in me? She’d never given any indication.
“Judith—” I started, but she slammed her hand down on the counter, making me jump and cutting me off.
“No. I been around a long time, honey, and I’ve seen a lot. And I knew from the second you walked in here you were too good to be here. You might not think you are, but you are. I can see it, and I’m damn certain Miss Porter can see it, too.”
I shook my head. “I can’t go back there. I can’t—” I couldn’t see Hudson again. Or Brandon. Or Stephanie or Sandra or David….
God. This morning destroyed everything.
Judith leaned in, forcing me to focus on her dark brown eyes. “You can. And you will. That’s all there is to it.”
“You don’t know.” More tears formed. I hated them. Hated the way they tracked down my cheeks in the same pattern like they’d burrowed roads on my skin this morning. “I can’t.”
“You can,” she insisted. “Because you’re not only better than this place, you’re probably better than whoever is making you feel like you can’t. You got grit, honey. You’re a survivor, and there isn’t a way you can become the winner if you give up now. Isn’t that why you been going to school, trying so hard since you got out of jail? To be a winner? To make something of yourself? And now, what?” She threw her hands in the air and let them slap against her hips. “You’re just going to give up? Nah. I’m not going to let you. And if I let you come back here, that’s exactly what you’d be doing. Giving up.”
Her words washed over me. The conviction in her tone was strong as an oak tree. And somehow, this woman who didn’t have to believe in me, didn’t have to say anything, spoke directly to the cracks and damages created this morning.
Too bad I didn’t have the confidence in me she did. “I don’t know if I can.”
“I know you can,” she said. “I know you can and you will and it’ll be hard because I don’t know what happened but that look on your face tells me it’s heavy. And I know you’ve had a lot of heavy to hold in your life which means I know you can do this, too. You’ve got this.”