Struggling to let go of a failed relationship.

Based on a post by dark overlord 6, in 4 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Connected.

The

rest of the day, he spent thankfully inside; taking in and fulfilling

requests for everything from paperweights to desk calendars. It was a

surprisingly exhausting first day, and he fell asleep in the car on the

way home. His dad shook him awake when they arrived, and he walked into

the house in a daze, barely mustering the energy to eat dinner before he

headed to his bedroom and collapsed on top of the covers. He was half

dozing, even though it was scarcely 8:00 pm, when his phone rang.

"Yeah;" he grumbled into the receiver.

"David? You sound terrible, are you sick?"

David

sat up in bed, wiping at his eyes, heart racing at the sound of

Heather's voice on the other side of the call, " No; Just tired. My dad

got me a summer job at High Rock."

"I heard. Chris told me. I guess that must be hard work."

"You

got that right," he replied, trying to put some life in his voice. He

wondered if she was calling to tell him the thing with Alex had been a

colossal mistake, and beg him to take her back. Of course, he would be

kind about it after a suitable period of groveling, but it turned out

that wasn't why she had called.

"David;

I wanted to apologize for how things went down at the graduation party.

I meant to tell you beforehand, but it was harder than I thought."

"I can't imagine why? We were only together three years," replied David, not able to keep the anger out of his tone.

"Don't be this way, David. I was hoping we could still be friends."

"Friends." David echoed her words in deadpan resolve.

David had let the word roll around in his mouth, finding it tasted particularly bitter.

"Yeah;

I'm working at Farley's Ice Cream in the mall, this summer. If you want

to come by some time, I might be able to sneak you a free chocolate

chip cone." she added, mentioning his favorite ice cream flavor.

"You trying to bribe me into being your buddy?"

Heather

grew quiet on the other end, before saying; "I can see you're not ready

to be mature about this, so I'll let you go. I hope you can forgive me

someday. I do want to be friends."

"Doe's Alex want to be my friend too?" David inquired in mock sincerity.

"He's not as bad as you make him out. Maybe we could all hang out at Wave World sometime? Alex could get us in, free."

"Alex is working at Wave World?" asked David, knowing employees could get two friends in free, on off days.

"Yeah; He's the head lifeguard at the wave pool."

David

felt a pang of jealous anger well up inside him. He had been the head

lifeguard at the wave pool the last two summers. Alex had not only taken

his girl but his cushy summer job, as well.

"Son of a bitch! I can tell you it will be a cold day in Hell before I take charity from Alex fucking Romero!"

"I'm going to let you go, David. Maybe we can talk later;"

Heather

broke the connection before he could say anything else, and as soon as

her voice vanished, he felt instantly guilty for his outburst.

David dropped the phone onto the bed.

"Just perfect;" he thought, wondering how this summer could get any worse.

First Lesson.

The

following morning was even harder than the previous, and David wondered

how anyone got used to waking up this early. He barely managed to make

it into the car on time, and his dad gave him a dirty look as they

pulled away. A lecture might have followed, something about accepting

responsibility, but David was asleep before they hit the first stop sign

at the end of the street. His dad roused him from his slumber when they

got to the plant gate and dropped him off a short time later.

Thankfully,

Thomas had a pot of coffee going, and David managed to pull himself

together enough to begin his day. The morning was filled with supply

requests as well as the thrill of getting to inventory the facilities

closet; where he got to take an accounting of every mop, broom, and box

of toilet paper.

"Double

check those boxes," threw in Roxy, "the vendor loves to short us a

couple of rolls, and we don't need people wiping their asses on the

furniture." Roxy had a strategic mastery of crude corollaries to

counteract the visual reality that her smoking-hot body was too

appealing for the male population to resist flirting with. She ‘cracked

the whip’ verbally, to keep the men focused on the tasks, not the tits.