Rags to Riches

I didn’t think I would adjust well to all this new fancy crap, but within a few weeks, I was sort of getting into the routine of things. I was feeling less out of place while there and was almost starting to like what I was doing. It wasn’t particularly difficult or exciting work, but it was somewhat interesting.

I had a small desk off to the side of Donovan’s office and was kind of like a filter of information for him. There were so many things that came up through TechNet’s hierarchy that Donovan was supposed to look over, and often times he didn’t have enough time to go through them all. Among all of those, there were quite a few that really weren’t necessary for him to actually look at. My job most of the time was to at very least glance over everything that came our way and figure out if Donovan actually needed to look at it or if it could be sent somewhere else.

I never in my life thought that I would find aspects of business anything near interesting. But the more I glanced over the memos and papers and such that came over my desk, the more I actually found myself reading into everything. Certain things would just catch my attention and I would find myself reading entire papers without even meaning to. It was odd to think that I was actually enjoying what was almost supposed to be my punishment, but I was also glad that I wasn’t miserable there.

Outside of TechNet though, things weren’t exactly going as smoothly.

It was harder than I thought it would be to hide it from my parents, especially once Anna told them that I wasn’t always home when she got home. I didn’t blame her for ratting me out though; I never actually told her anything about what was going on, so she was probably very confused the first day she came home and I wasn’t there.

The third Wednesday after I started at TechNet, my dad came home from work an hour earlier than normal and in a terrible mood. I was in my room, trying to study for the only class that was giving me hell this semester, when I heard the door slam. I quirked my eyebrows and checked the time, thinking at first that I’d somehow lost an hour. Seeing that I didn’t, I closed my books and hopped off my bed, heading for the kitchen.

As I walked down the hallway leading from our bedrooms to the kitchen and living room, I overheard my dad talking in hushed and angry tones to my mother. Before I rounded the corner, I heard my name and stopped behind the wall to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“…not going down that road again. You can’t think that, William. It’s only been happening for a couple weeks, it’s not happening every day, and you haven’t even asked him about it yet! Have a little faith in your son, for Christ’s sake.” It was my mom trying to calm my dad down and, thankfully, sticking up for me on whatever it was that he was doubting about me.

“Come on Lisa. He’s always home in time to meet Annabeth at the bus, and he hasn’t been quite often over the last few weeks. He didn’t tell her either and she was afraid and home alone for a few hours those days. That’s not responsible, and when he’s not responsible, he’s slipping back into his bad behavior.”

I rolled my eyes at my dad’s lack of faith in me and then had to stop myself from laughing because of how ironically incorrect he was. He thought I was being irresponsible, but I was actually being far more responsible than he could ever imagine.

“William, don’t you think that if Kenny was falling back into his old ways, they would, I dunno….mirror his old ways? He’s not sneaking out late at night and coming back at stupid hours of the morning. He’s not getting an attitude with us or ignoring his household chores. Literally the only thing he’s doing that is different from normal is coming home a couple of hours after school lets out. Maybe he’s part of a study group or something, or he’s got a group project for a class that they have to work on after school. I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about William. Just because he’s not home 24 fucking 7 does not mean that he’s turning into a delinquent again. I don’t know why you’re so determined to make him out to be such a bad child.”

My father continued to try to fight my mother on the matter, though he did seem to lighten up a little bit after she put him in his place – not that he’d know it, apparently. I just gave up on eavesdropping on them at that point. I knew I wasn’t going to hear anything new from his mouth and I would just have to listen to my mom defending me, which honestly, I didn’t want her to have to do. I shook my head and went back to my room to try to continue studying. After another hour of not being able to focus and getting absolutely nowhere, like normal, I gave up on that too and decided to just go to bed.

The next day I found out why my dad had come home earlier than normal and why he was already in such a foul mood when he walked through the door. He and four of his co-workers had been called into the supervisor’s office towards the end of the shift, where she told them that the company was forced to downsize, so they would have to let some people go, and that they were the people that they had to let go.

My dad had a terrible track record when it came to keeping jobs. Usually he was only able to stay at any given job for a few months before something happened to make him lose his job. But at this last place, he had already passed the one year mark and we all thought that things were looking up for him. Apparently that wasn’t the case, however, since he was now unemployed again.

That just made my whole situation even weirder. I had a job and my dad didn’t. And although I wasn’t actually bringing home an actual paycheck, I was still able to put a little bit away here and there. Don had started to basically throw a twenty at me every day so that I could get something to eat, and every time I tried to give him back whatever I didn’t spend, he’d insist that I kept it. Once I realized that would become a daily thing, I started keeping an old coffee can in my dresser and put the extra money in there when I got home. I also added the four hundred and some that was left over from what Don originally gave me after I gave some to my mom for her shoes, bought Anna some new art supplies, and put a bit in the original rainy-day jar we had going. I kept the rest of the money separate from my parents because A) I didn’t want them getting suspicious because I randomly acquired six hundred dollars, and B) I honestly didn’t exactly trust them to not spend it all on things that aren’t really necessary. And now that my dad’s out of work, it’s a good thing I did that, because we’ll have the extra money for sure if we do end up needing it for bills or anything else important.

The next day at work, Don once again gave me a twenty to go get food, and even though I wasn’t hungry, I knew he wouldn’t give me anything to do until I went and ate. I tried skipping out on eating a couple other times and he all but forced me to go down to the cafeteria and buy at least a bag of chips and a drink. I couldn’t tell why he was so keen on my pointlessly spending his money, but I figured he had plenty to spare.

When I walked back into Don’s office with a tea and a bag of pretzels, I saw a familiar man standing in the middle of the room, talking to Don very casually. It took me a second to process where I knew the guy from, but I soon realized that he was the same guy that Callie was talking to in the elevator my first day here. It was her brother. The same brother whose job is below mine. The guy I was hoping to never actually have to meet. ’Fucking shit.’

It was too late to turn around, leave, and act like I’d never been there. Callie’s brother – I forgot his name already – had turned towards me the second I walked in the door. He was smiling while talking to his father, but as his eyes began to take in me standing in front of him, that smile faded and his eyebrows quirked in confusion.

I froze. I had no idea how to react to that situation. I knew that it would have been best for him not to know about me and my “job”, but apparently Don didn’t think so.

“Oh Connor, this is my new intern, Kenneth. Kenny, this is my son, Connor. He works down on the second floor with the visual marketing team. I’m guessing you two haven’t met yet?”

“I don’t remember meeting you, but you sure do look familiar,” Connor said to me, his eyebrows still quirked as he gave me a once-over. His gaze stopped shortly at the tattoos that were peeping out from under my rolled up sleeves. He looked back up at my face and I could have sworn his eyes were going to get stuck, all twisted like they were. “Oh my god. I recognize those tattoos. You’re the guy that was with my sister in the elevator that day she was acting all weird and went to the fourth floor. But you look totally different than you did that day. You didn’t look like an intern at all.”

“Oh, so you two have met!” Don exclaimed, still apparently not seeing the problem of the situation. I could kind of tell that something switched in Connor. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that it probably wasn’t good and most likely had to do with finding out about me. “Wait, what was Callie doing on the fourth floor?”

“Trying to avoid this confrontation,” I mumbled slightly, feeling like I wanted to curl into a ball.

“Confrontation?” Connor asked quickly, the pitch of his voice rising slightly. “This isn’t a confrontation. We’re all fine here, right Dad?” He looked away from me and towards his father’s desk, but I could still see that he wasn’t ‘all fine’. His hands were starting to shake slightly, between him wringing them together, and his voice was uneasy. “I’ve been here for years and still have a second floor job. But this…this – hood rat-“ His voice squeaked on those last two words and I cringed at the term. “He comes in here looking like he just stepped out of a back alley and you hire him as your personal intern. But we’re fine here. No confrontation here. We’re g-good.”

I realized that Connor had some real issues at that point, so I didn’t even think about starting any shit over what he said. I just stood back and watched with wide eyes as he wrung his hands together, ran his fingers roughly through his hair and across his face, and just basically turned into a twitchy mess.

He was breathing heavily and had me thinking he would soon start full-out hyperventilating when he shook his head and spun on his heels, stalking out of the office, his entire body screaming distress.

“Connor! Hey! We need to talk about this!” Don called after his son. He was already out of his chair and walking towards his son, trying to catch him before he left. He yelled through Kim’s office at his son’s back, “Where do you think you’re going Connor?”

“Out!”