But You Loved Me

My hand reached out and slapped down onto the top of the small plastic alarm clock, the shrill ringing that had woken me stopping as my hand made impact. I sighed, still not wanting to open my eyes. If I did, then that means admitting that the week had begun. I pulled my blankets over my head again to block out the daylight that was pulling at my eyelids.
In French, ’Mon’ means my, which, as far as I’m concerned, suggests that Monday is my day. Yet – thanks to the wonders of my job - it never really feels like it, so I intend to spend as much time as I can denying it… maybe I should move to France.

An extra twenty minutes in bed, and three cups of coffee later I was somewhat awake and – after quickly showering throwing on my ‘uniform’ which only consisted of a pair of pants and a black shirt, honestly, it couldn’t really be classed as a uniform – heading towards work.
I pulled up in my usual parking space, turning off the engine and sitting back in my seat with a sigh. And so begins another repetitive week…

I headed in through the staff door, discarding my jacket in our tiny closet as I headed for the front of the store, where I was hit with the dusty smell of paper as I stepped through the door - or rather the hole where the door should be. Steve was busy punching numbers into the register when I arrived, and his eyes met mine with a brief smile.

“I need you to check the shelves are ordered,” he instructed as he turned back to the register, “and take down the old posters in the windows. And then the store room needs clearing out.” He added, his eyes glancing back up from the register as he finished speaking. I simply nodded and headed for the closest set of shelves. Not that any re-ordering was really necessary, we didn’t get enough customers for them to ever be unorganized. But I pulled a few out - and then pushed them back into the place I had just taken them from – just for the authenticity.

“Good weekend?” Steve asked over the occasional ping of the register, or dull thud of a book.

“Yeah,” I replied, attempting to sound convincing, although I felt no need to elaborate. There was nothing to elaborate on. I couldn’t exactly call any part of my life good, anymore, just dull and repetitive. “Yours?” I asked. Although I wasn’t really paying any attention when he answered. I’d heard all about his trainee-teacher girlfriend a hundred times before. In fact, I bought my coffee from her several times just in the past few weeks.

I quickly worked my way through the shelves, putting the odd book back into it’s rightful place, before heading into the cramped store room, which was filled with old books, useless pieces of paper, and whatever other junk we no longer sold, where I spent most of my morning packing anything that wasn’t tossed into the already overflowing trash into boxes and stacking them into the corner of the room.

And then came my counter shift. The best and worst part of my day, simply because it was so quiet that I rarely ever had to do any work, but unfortunately that left me with two choices, staring at shabby old bookshelves all day, or thinking, and honestly. I didn’t like doing either. Occasionally I took the opportunity to catch up on my sleep, and once or twice I actually read one or two of the books, but more recently I’d taken to drinking a lot of coffee, and keeping comic books hidden under the counter that I could pull out and read whenever I found myself alone, which was the majority of the time.

The shop was silent during my shift. No changes there. Until minutes before I was due my lunch break, when the bell above the door dinged and a soft gust of air floated through the store. I groaned inwardly, pushing myself up from my stool. Now I was guaranteed a shorter lunch, my one escape from this place, and some idiot was cutting it short to look for a book on trees. And then a familiar face appeared from behind the shelves, and the weight on my chest lifted, lifting my expression slightly with it.

“There’s no way you can blow me off this time,” Mikey smiled as he leaned across the counter, pushing his glasses up his nose. I rolled my eyes; he wouldn’t be letting that go for a while.

“I didn’t blow you off. I -.”

“Fell asleep. Which is worse,” he cut in, his tone serious, but the smile hidden behind his eyes made me realize he wasn’t and brought one out in me.

“I’ll be right back,” I told him, and turned for the staff room, leaning around the door frame as I announced I was heading for lunch. Steve simply threw a brief wave in my direction, not bothering to look up from his paperwork, so I took that as a ‘sure, go ahead.’ And turned back to the front of the store, grabbing my jacket as I headed back to where Mikey was now stood by one of the shelves, flicking through one of our second hand books.

He snapped it shut when I reappeared and dropped it randomly back onto the shelf with a thud. “Starbucks?” he suggested. I replied with a smile. He hadn’t even needed to ask. Starbucks was inevitable where Mikey and I were concerned; we both had a slight addiction to coffee.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous of my little brother. Things had really worked out for him. Like most of us, High School wasn’t the greatest experience of his life, but he came out on top. He went to college, found himself a great set of friends, found a girlfriend that was as besotted with him as he was her. Their relationship could have probably even been made into a Disney movie, seriously. They met in a mall. Ran into each other – literally – she spilled her milkshake on him, and he didn’t even care about how his hair had looked covered with pink sludge. They were forever. And to top it all off, he had a decent, well-paying job in a music store, as executive manager, the little shit.
I couldn’t be prouder of him.

“So,” Mikey began as we sat down, taking a sip from his steaming coffee before he continued. “How’s life?” he asked, I raised an eyebrow.

“Really? We’re doing small talk now?” I asked.

“Humor me.” I sighed.

“Mikes, I know what your getting at. But I’m fine.” I told him; of course I was completely lying. I hadn’t been fine in years, but if anything I’d gotten used to blocking it out by now, and Mikey and I had been having this exact same conversation day in, day out for pretty much the same amount of time. I’d had become a pretty good liar.

“Gee-.”

“Mikey! I’m fine. I’ve got a job, a car, an apartment. What more do I need?” The question was rhetorical, but he answered anyway.

“Company.” I sighed again. Time after time the subject came up in the exact same way; in fact, it had been the subject of many arguments, some of which ended in us not speaking for a while. And Mikey and I never argued, he was the one person I was closest too, always had been. But that wasn’t going to change anything, I didn’t want company.

“Mi-.”

“Don’t tell me you’re fine, Gee, because you haven’t been fine for years. You need to get back out there and fucking live!” he told me, I flinched slightly. He wasn’t shouting, in fact, his tone was no different to normal, but whenever Mikey cursed, you knew he was deadly serious, and honestly, I didn’t really like it. He always looked too small and innocent to come out with words like that, but I suppose that’s just my ‘older brother’ kicking in. I sighed again, inwardly this time. I knew he was right. I always had, I just didn’t want to admit it.