Chapter Text
Anne has a morning routine, but it’s more like the morning routine has her. Its grip is impossibly firm, and she can never seem to shake it.
When Anne wakes up, at 5:30 AM on the dot, she gives herself thirty seconds to really wake up. To shake off any dreams she's had, full of wide eyes and viscera-stained crosses and desperate apologies for debts impossible to repay. Their contents leave her chest tight even after her 30 seconds have elapsed, but she can’t dwell on it. She has a schedule to maintain. She sits up and makes a cross instead.
Forehead
The Father
Chest
The Son
and the Holy
Left
Spirit
Right
She does it twice more, and then she threads her fingers together to pray.
Out loud, carefully, each consonant is enunciated. If she does it in her head, it doesn’t count. Her thoughts are too rapid and muffled for God to decipher. Her hands shake as she gives thanks and apologies in equal measure. Thankful for shelter, and food, and the privilege to speak at with someone so good, so powerful, so all-consuming. Followed by apologies for doubts, sinful actions, and the negative thoughts and urges that she hasn't been trying hard enough to shove down. Sometimes she wants to apologize more, for holding such an innate wrongness that runs soul-deep, but she always holds her tongue. She has a nagging fear in the back of her mind that she would hear a booming voice agree with her, disavow her, if she ever says it. She would never recover from that, so she doesn't.
Amen
She does the cross again. She repeats it 6 more times, 7 in total. 7 is the best number. The friends of Job sat with him for 7 days, and 7 nights, Jacob bowed 7 times, 7 sins are deadly. God loves 7, so Anne does too.
When she's finished, she pushes thick glasses on and shuffles to her closet. Her options are limited. Vanity is sinful, and clothes are expensive. She settles on an orange-cream collared shirt and a loose pair of cargo pants, held up by a black belt.
She buckles it up as she moves on to the bathroom.
Brushing her teeth, Anne watches herself, half-lidded green eyes watching back. She touches the gray indentions underneath them with her free hand, frowning around her toothbrush. Sometimes it seems like the dips she prods with her fingers are growing darker and deeper. They stand out harshly against her pale, freckled skin. They make her look sickly. I get six hours of sleep. Am I really that stressed?
With each tooth deliberately cleaned, a costly dental bill avoided, she spits, shifting her focus onto the red mess of curls hanging down to her shoulders. She has 10 minutes of her morning allocated to brushing out tangles, so she fights them quickly. By the time she smoothed them out into a high ponytail, the pain in her scalp wakes her up a fraction more.
Getting to the kitchen is a blur, and throwing her bag lunch and a couple of energy drinks in her backpack is too. While in there, Anne makes sure to check that the stove is off. It is. She snaps a picture of the straight knobs, feeling marginally more at ease knowing she won't burn the entire apartment complex down while she's at work.
A cup is filled with water and turned into a pot on the windowsill. Anne was never a big plant person; she had always wanted a lizard. She knows she would worry herself to the point of sickness about killing it, so a sizable ponytail palm will suffice. It brings a little life to her home, standing out against a backdrop of undecorated beige walls, save from a cross over the doorway. Anne never had anyone over, but if she did they would probably compare the environment to what a recently divorced father’s apartment looks like.
“Maybe that's not great,” Anne thinks as she enters the hallway, locking her door three times behind her, “ but Jesus didn't have the luxury of a pretty apartment either, so does it really matter?”
Her question is unanswered, and she gets to her car at 6:30 on the dot.
Excellent.
No one is under her boxy little Kia Soul waiting to cut her Achilles tendon, and no one is in the back of it to strangle her. She checks her photos before she turns her car on. The stove is still off. She didn't leave the stove on. She still feels nervous.
The drive to work is short. The only things she passes are fire and brimstone billboards, too many fast-food restaurants, her old high school, and houses with patchy lawns. Head Quart Texas is the kind of town full of people who can't afford to move or never saw a reason to. The humid air outside always feels stale with ambitions forgotten or pushed for a “later” that will never come. Anne looks at it all with a dread she quickly suppresses, just like every other morning. If she thinks about how stationary she feels, she won't get through the day. The only thing assuring her was the promise that she would be different; that she would get out. Just not today.
Anne reaches her destination. She shrugs on her vest, blue with the words “CLOUD 9” pasted over the breast. It's tacky, but it's mandatory. Her car is locked three times. An itch at the back of her mind tells her she did it wrong. Three more. Maybe she pressed the unlock button by accident? Once more, extra attention on her finger.
♪ Chirp Chirp! ♪
The itch is satiated, and she makes her way inside. She greets Emmanuele at the door (a big, sweet, too-shy-for-his-own-good security guard) who gives a sheepish little wave and smile in return. A beeline is made past clean shelves and loud product placements to the break room. It's already occupied by three people talking around the coffee pot as Anne moves to store her stuff in one of the wall lockers.
“No, what I'm saying – Hi Anne – what I'm saying is that a dog mayor could totally work for a small town, I think we should do it.” One of her coworkers says. She brushes her fingers through her impossibly shiny black bob, talking through thick eyelashes to a stout, irritated man.
“Drishti, I say this with zero respect, that is the stupidest thing I have heard all morning. And I just woke up. So now my morning is off to a great fucking start.” The short man – Arthur – says over the top of his dark coffee.
“Can I talk like that?” the littlest member of the conversation turns to Drishti with wide, sparkling eyes. She held a mug like the other two (hot cocoa, shes far too young for coffee), her wavy hair cut in the same style as the older sister she stared up at with pure adoration.
“Girl, no. Go color, or something.” Her tone was annoyed, but there was a warmness towards her sister that was palpable. While little Eesha went to get her crayons, Drishti spoke to Arthur through her teeth.
“If she starts cursing , I'm kicking your ass ”
“Oh, the irony.”
Their bickering continues, but Anne is too busy sitting down with a caffeinated drink and a breakfast bar to tune back in. She mutters a prayer to thank God for the food and to ask that no eyes train on her. Which, they don’t. Everyone is used to it; it happens every morning. The rest of the staff stream in over the next couple of minutes while she enjoys what could be considered a breakfast, and by the time the clock strikes 7:30 all employees are accounted for. A slender, sweater-vest-clad man with a name tag that reads “FELIX” in obnoxiously bold letters slides to the front to get the day started.
“Goooood morning everybody!” The manager says with an enthusiasm unfit for such an early hour.
His subordinates respond with considerably less enthusiasm, but he is unphased.
Anne spaces out as he rattles off the tasks assigned to everybody for the workday, instead electing to spin the tab on her can around in circles mindlessly. The repetitive motion allows for her mind to quiet, at least for a nice little moment. She's pulled out of it with the mention of her name.
“And then there's… Anne! I actually have a special job for you today!”
The eyes that turn to her and the uncertainty around Felix’s words make her shoulders tense (more than usual). He must notice, because he quickly back-peddles.
“Oh no, uh, nothing bad! It's actually exciting! I need your help training... drum roll please–”
Felix is the only one to do a drumroll.
“ –the new employee we’re getting today!”
That seems to get everyone's attention.
“We’re getting someone new?” A voice drawls from the back of the room, interest pulled from the thick novel she was reading, “SUSAN” on her name tag.
“Yes!” Felix exclaims, thrilled to finally have eyes on him.
There was a pause as everyone seemed to look around.
“Where are they-”
BANG!
The door to the breakroom bursts open, and all heads snap to it, Anne’s included. What she sees makes her breath hitch in her throat.
A woman skids to a halt in the doorway, breaths heavy like she had just stopped running. She has choppy blue hair that must have been swept back by the wind shed created. Anne’s eyes can’t help but flicker to the green t-shirt and jorts the woman was wearing while doubled over.
She looks good
The thought pops into her head without her permission. The implications of it made her heart stop, and her eyes widen in a sick mixture of horror and confusion. Her ears and cheeks flash feverishly hot.
What the fuck
She was too consumed by the cocktail of mortifying feelings rushing through her to chastise herself for cursing. She barely catches what the mysterious woman says through a contagious smile.
“Oh my god, I'm so sorry I'm late!”
She sucks in a couple more quick breaths. Anne watches her chest rise and fall before she can stop herself. For a moment, she thinks her red ears have stopped working alongside her brain.
“I ran over a cake !”