WHO Cin WHEN Thursday mid-morning WHERE The Hole WHAT Frustrations of many kinds WARNINGS light violence
"I warned you that you were on your last strike, Cindy. I gave you so many chances!"
Maurice was walking as he spoke, and Cin scrambled after him through the convenience store. "I'm sorry!" she pleaded with him. "I fell asleep at the hospital and I lost track of time and-"
"You've always got an excuse, Cindy. Always someone in hospital, or a bus broke down, or a family emergency." He stopped walking and turned, shaking his head. "It's not flying anymore. You're fired. Really, this time."
"Please, Maurice-"
"You're fired," he said, louder. "If I can't rely on you to show up for your shifts or trust you with the merchandise, I can't have you here."
Ten minutes later, her things collected, Cin sat on the curb across the street from her old workplace, trying to figure out what she was going to do now. The blare of traffic and pedestrians and a guy hawking kids toys off a table nearby were all combining into a cacophony that Cin could just let herself sink down into.
Barak was not in a good way. Every time Cin pushed the doctors for answers they told her the same thing: they wouldn't know how bad he was until he woke up, and every day that he didn't wake up his chances of recovery grew worse.
So Cin spent long hours at the side of his bed, telling him how much she loved him, how much she needed him, how he had to wake up because he was stronger than some stupid coma. He was the strongest guy she'd ever met.
Cin already felt like she didn't have enough time in her life, and now she was adding in 'sickbed waiting' to 'work' and 'work' and 'family'.
Or... just one work now. And that one work was not enough to keep the family going.
Fuck.
FUCK.
"FUCK!" she screamed, hands buried in her hair. The man selling toys looked over, but since she fell silent again and didn't seem to be in (or causing) trouble, no one paid her more attention than that.
With no eight hour shift ahead of her, Cin pulled herself up from the ground and turned in the direction of the train home. Maybe she could just go home and take care of a few things there - the bathroom was filthy and she'd been putting it off, and the kitchen needed a probably going over as well. She could scrub out some frustrations on the old lino.
On the train, Cin pulled up a job listings page and started scrolling through. She decided to fuck organizing anything too deeply, and began putting in applications for anything that didn't require qualifications she didn't have: a couple secretary jobs, a factory line worker, some waitressing gigs, housekeeping for some weirdo, a school cleaner.
She walked the five blocks from train station back to the Hole in silence, too busy worrying to even consider putting on her music.
What happened in Barak didn't wake up?
Cindy had known Barak her whole life. He'd made out with her at a party when she was thirteen and although he didn't remember it afterwards, Cin had been hooked from that moment. She'd been sixteen when they got together. Eight years dating: it seemed like both shorter and longer than that.
And what happened if Cin couldn't find another job?
The Warmoth's home life was a precarious thing and it only escaped scrutiny if Cin kept paying the bills. She could lie to schools that Kelly was 'busy' and she could forge signatures and they could all just pretend their mother was temporarily out, but that only worked if they remained below people's notice. Cin wasn't anyone's legal guardian in this house, just their sister, and she didn't quite know what would happen if people started taking notice of that.
Maybe everything would stay the same. Or maybe someone would show up and take Brody, Jake and Ruth away and shove them in some sort of group home. Bailey was almost eighteen and had made it clear she planned to leave and never look back once she finished school. Cin couldn't exactly blame her, but Cin herself was in too deep. She had to look out for her brothers and sister. Especially Brody. He was just a kid.
When Cin reached the house, she found the front door unlocked and thought well fuck, maybe the feds should come take all these little shit-heels away.
But the house was not empty, and nor was it a burglar that Cin found. Instead it was Jake sitting on the couch with a spoon and the jar of peanut butter. When she entered the room he froze, the sound of the tv as their backdrop.
"What the fuck are you doing home?" Cin demanded.
"You're supposed to be at work!" Jake yelped, clambering to his feet.
"You're supposed to be at school!" She snatched the remote from Jake and then the peanut butter, glaring down at him. "Why are you not at school??"
"I... didn't feel well."
"Oh, you're about to feel real goddamn bad in a sec."
"Please, no, wait, I didn't know you'd be home!"
Cin whacked him in the side of the head with the remote. "So you fuckin' skipped because you thought I wouldn't find out!?" Cin was going to throttle him. She almost couldn't stop her hands wrapping around his dumb little neck. Instead she grabbed hold of his upper arm hard enough that he yelped again and then she dragged him, furious and silent, to his bedroom. There she shoved him inside hard enough that he hit the dresser, and slammed the door after him.
She couldn't deal with this now. She didn't want to deal with this now.
Through the closed door she yelled, "we will talk about this later!"
Then she stomped her way back down the stairs and started cleaning the kitchen, everything getting scrubbed cleaner than it had seen in a long while.