Page 38 of Prometheus' Priestess

“Theo put you in a taxi, knowing how you feel about them, and left you,” Amara muttered to herself, aggressively scrubbing the stainless-steel pot in her hands before before placing it in the industrial dishwasher. Whatever was burnt onto the bottom of it had refused to succumb to her fury. Of all the duties she had at the café, this was the one she liked least but it did make for excellent anger management therapy.

Amara hadn’t seen Theo in three months.

She had spent that time throwing herself into her work just to keep busy. Her boss, Alice, was a broad, tall woman whose voice could boom across the café from the kitchen out back. But she was jovial and friendly and made Amara feel safe and protected under her wing. She also kept her busy. And while it had taken them a few weeks to find their rhythm together, Amara now knew, with military precision, how Alice liked to run her café. They worked in perfect unison, keeping the customers happy and coming back for more, day in, day out. It kept Amara’s mind and body occupied from everything atleast.

Until she was alone with the dishes. Then she was alone with her thoughts. What had happened when she’d arrived in Edinburgh. How Theo had looked at her that night she’d finally felt like herself again − as if she was a broken bird to be fixed. The fact that he had forgotten her fear of taxis and then left her. The fact that he’d promised to take her to that tartan shop and in the meantime she had gottennowherewith it. It all played in the background of her mind in a perpetual loop. The fact that he hadn’t come back at all cracked her heart open further and she let out a small sob.

“Are you muttering to yourself again?” Kiaria, one of the other waitresses, laughed as she came and dumped a load of dishes in the back.

Wicked smart and with a tongue to match, Amara wouldn’t have expected Kiaria to be a waitress, much less Alice’s niece. Where Alice was broad and fair in her late forties, Kiaria was a five-foot, petite Asian woman in her twenties.

“Adopted into the family,” she’d told Amara the first time they’d met, at Amara’s look of confusion she’d poorlyhidden.

Kiaria’s black hair was chopped in a stylish jagged fringe and finished neatly at her chin, which matched the cut of her cheekbones and jawline and made her seem incredibly no-nonsense. Like she’d cut straight to the point, and that was exactly what she did. Her eyes, laughing at Amara, were a deep, dark brown, so close to black that Amara couldn’t actually tell where her irises began. But rather than giving off a cold, shark-like feel, the wide grin that accompanied Kiaria’s heart-shaped face held a glint that was both personable and cheeky.

Amara smiled at Kiaria shyly, covering her sob as a sneeze. Then John, another waiter, who was a tall, lanky Northerner with sleazy charm coming out of his pores, entered. He snuck up on Kiaria and squeezed her stomach, making her squeal, and Amara turned back to the dishes.

She couldn’t help the resentment that stirred in her gut. She felt cheap and dirty as she listened in to the lovers’ whispered conversation.Lustful.

Then the guilt, for burning with such seething jealousy, would hit. They reminded her of Theo. Of what she was missing out on.Envy.

There was always the option, of course, to go out and choose a bedmate of her own. She’d had offers, which she’d almost agreed to a few times. But every time she got the courage to dress up to go out with the rest of the staff crew, she would take a hard look at herself in the mirror and remember that first night in Edinburgh, when she had been confident and secure in herself.Look where that got you, her mind would whisper. A shudder would roll through her body. She’d sigh, defeated, text Kiaria that she wasn’t coming, get undressed, and reach for the bottle of wine that had now taken up a permanent residence on her bedside table in the shared house she was renting.Idle.

She was half convinced Kiaria had given up on getting her out of her mopey state. After her third offer was declined, Kiaria had simply resorted to raising an eyebrow at Amara the next day after she’d made a half-arsed excuse the night before. Usually the excuse was work. Days at the café started early, so it was valid and Amara certainly picked up the most shifts. She worked hard. She earned good money, she told herself.Everything was fine.

Yet when she would finish for the night, there was a collection of bottles her money was spent on, of all varieties, waiting for her at home. Wine, gin, whisky ... the collection continued to grow.Greedily.

At first, Amara had made the excuse that she was using them for something. A pretty blue and orange detailed gin bottle doubled as a vase, yet held a single red rose. Another had been used to store pennies. A third she was going to use for a sand bottle. She just hadn’t gotten around to ityet.

If she was being honest with herself, she hadn’t gotten around to much these days. Apart from work, she came home to eat, binge watch a series on the TV, drink, and go to bed. Upon waking up with a raging headache, she would punish herself by cleaning the dishes she had left from the night before, gagging at the smell of burnt meat. She vehemently chastised herself every time for forgetting to soak the dishes.Furious.

“Earth to Amara???” John interrupted.

“Sorry,” Amara said, shaking her head and turning back to the pair of lovebirds, smiling sheepishly. “What did yousay?”

“I asked if you wanted to come out with us again ... you still haven’t been on a night out in Edinburgh youknow.”

Yes,Amara thought.She had.

“Ah no thanks, maybe anothertime.”

John shrugged, clearly nonplussed, kissed Kiaria on the cheek and went back out front before Alice noticed and reprimanded him.

“What if we just had drinks, me and you?” Kiaria asked.

Amara paused her furious scrubbing.

“Just me andyou?”

“Yeah.”

Amara thought about it for a moment.

“Ok,” she said, finding herself slowly nodding along. She could do that. After all, she felt safe in Kiaria’s company. The fellow waitress preferred to do most of the talking, and while Amara could talk with the best of them, she much preferred to listen. Kiaria made her feel safe by taking theattention.

“Great! Do you want to do tomorrownight?”

“Sounds good tome.”

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