sades' short stories

Noisy Teens Mock Elderly Veteran

tags: >5k words, contemporary, family, commission

Martin stood up from his couch and set down his half-finished newspaper crossword puzzle. It was three in the afternoon, which meant he had little time left to get around for work. He walked with a slight limp over to his bedroom, where he replaced the button-up t-shirt he had on with a fine suit, one of four in his limited closet. Then he switched into dress pants and walked to the bathroom.

His reflection in the mirror didn't feel like him. Every time he looked over the last week, it was as if he was staring at someone new. Someone put together. He adjusted his bowtie and fumbled with his razor, holding it with both hands to make sure he didn't cut his face with the blade. Then, when he was satisfied with the cut, he wandered back to the bedroom, and from the front pocket of his button-up t-shirt, he pulled a coin, which he promptly put in the suit jacket.

After running through a list of items written on a sticky note, which had been placed on the fridge, he confirmed he was ready to go and stepped out the front door of his apartment. Once he'd managed to lock the door with his shaky hands, he carefully hobbled down the stairs to the ground floor, and started the walk to the bus stop. It would arrive in twenty minutes, and he'd be at the Stone Diner in forty.

Day seven of the first job he'd had in decades. The novelty hadn't worn off yet, and he hoped it never did. Not that he was doing it for himself. It was all for a woman with too big of a heart.

∙ ◦ ○( )○ ◦ ∙

"I'm glad we could all come together one last time before college starts," Mayla said, reclining in her spot in the restaurant booth. Her friends sat with her, focused either on her words or their phones.

"Yeah, me too," one friend, Kandi, said. "Everything is going to be so different."

"I know. I don't know how the three of you are going to survive without having regular access to me. You might actually have to get jobs."

"Sure, but what are you going to do?"

"I'll find other girls who want to fawn over me. It won't be hard."

"Speaking of hard," her friend Tammie said, "I'm seriously not sure what to do about the Danny situation."

Mayla had deemed Tammie the least important in her friend group, and she was regularly skipping their meetups to go out with Danny, her boyfriend of two years. It was beginning to cause serious damage to her status in the group. Any more interruptions like that, and she could face some serious consequences.

Mayla turned to confront her least-favorite friend of the group. "I think it's about time I said this, Tammie. You need to stop seeing Danny. He's a bad influence on you. Honestly, for a year there, you weren't even sure he loved you."

"That's not true," she countered.

One of her other friends, Emma, shook her head. "It kind of is true. You didn't know what to do with yourself when he went away for a week. Remember the breakdown party?"

"How could we forget the breakdown party?" Mayla said. "The worst birthday party of my life. Eighteen was supposed to be the year, Tammie."

"I still think eighteen is your year, Mayla," Kandi said, arching one hand over her shoulder. Kandi was Mayla's long-standing favorite, if only because she was the biggest suck-up. She'd survived every rotation of friends and had gotten her fair share of favors because of it.

"I guess we'll see. It really feels like a turning point."

There weren't many people like Mayla Stone in the small town she lived in. She knew this, too.