There's a Story at the Bottom of This Bottle

It didn’t take me long to walk to the local Hot Topic and punch in my time card.

“Hey, Sasha, what’s wrong? You look kinda glum today.”

Ektor, or Alex, as he wanted me to call him, walked into the backroom just in time to witness a near breakdown. MY near break down.

I had to say, I liked Alex. He was shy when I first met him, but when he starts getting to know you, he’s very friendly and welcoming. And oh my gosh, that kid smelled amazing.
When the guys were on tour, Alex would take Kezia and I out to dinner after work at least once a week. He was just a likable person, and I liked that about him. He had truly become one of my genuine friends since Kez and I moved here, but he hasn’t met the guys yet.

I drew in an unstable breath in an attempt to calm myself so my voice would be comprehensible.

“Just some stuff’s going on, no biggie.” Lies. All lies.

“Oh,” he started, “well, do you wanna go out after work, or something? I mean, it’s no biggie, if you don’t want to come,” Alex mimicked me, but his question was still serious. Something about his offer seemed very appealing.

“Sure, that’d be great,” I smiled.

-Kezia’s POV-

I left Lucy’s right after Sasha did, and I was glad to get out of there.
I couldn’t show my anger towards Brian in front of Sasha; the funny thing about her is that she’s extremely sensitive to other people’s emotions, but she discards hers as though they don’t matter.

Goddamnit, Haner’s gonna get his ass whooped if he doesn’t knock this shit off. My adrenaline fueled each heavy footstep it took for me to get back to the house, and I wasn’t gonna let any sweet talk from anybody calm me down.

-Sasha’s POV-

It turned out that Alex and I were the only people working today. Considering that it was a Sunday, the mall was incredibly slow, with mainly single mothers and fussy toddlers walking the open air corridors in between shops. Hardly anyone came into our store, just a few kids who got what they wanted and left. This meant that Alex and I had a lot of free time on our hands. Just so we would still get paid for doing something, we decided to restock and do some inventory, nothing out of the ordinary. Alex cracked some jokes, an obvious way try to get me smiling, and he succeeded. He told me cheesy jokes that only a boy my age would think were funny.

We both got to know each other’s little secrets that we hadn’t had the time to share before. I told him that my cat likes to get it on with me when I sleep; and he told me that his mom would make him dance the funky chicken in the street if he failed a test in school. It was little things like these that made me feel special, because I, for once, knew something that no one else knew. It was very nice to talk to Alex alone, without a buffer, for once. He seemed to
think so, too.

It was about 7:00 when we both clocked our time cards out, meaning that we both worked four hours. We dimmed the lights and locked the doors on our way out. Sushi Palace was only a few streets away from the mall, so we decided to just walk; no reason to use gas if we didn’t have to.

It was a small, friendly, family owned business, but wow, they had the best sushi in all of Orange County. We walked up to the tiny desk in the foyer to see Jen, the owner’s daughter, collecting menus for us and waving us over to a table in the corner of the restaurant. We sat down as she gave us our menus, and Jen took off to the kitchen.

“So, tell me,” Alex started, “how’s life?”

“Life,” I sighed, “life can be a bitch sometimes. How about you, bugaboo? How’s life treating you?”

He HATED when I called him that.

Wincing in response, “Life’s okay. Not great, but I don’t have any complaints,” he said. He smiled that snake-bitten smile, and he allowed his eyes to scan my face, puffy eyes and all.

“You are something, Sasha.” Alex chuckled, a deep, throaty rumble emerging from his chest. He was smiling wistfully to himself, off in his own little world.

“What?” Was I missing something, here?

“You’re different, Sasha, in the good way. You’re different from other girls. You don’t put yourself first. You don’t complain about how you burned your hand on a curling iron, or whatever. You don’t stare at my piercings when we talk, like most Huntington girls. You look me in the eye. It’s…refreshing.” His eyes were dancing with a subtle contentedness as he spoke, it was like he was ready to dig deep past my defensive walls and find out who the REAL Sasha Elizabeth Kinkade was.