Page 2 of Their Greatest Strength

I widen my eyes as my breath saws in and out of my lungs. Staring at the sheet of paper taped to the side of my cubicle with the reminder of every call being recorded, I debate backtracking and apologizing for everything I’ve said.

I don’t. I won’t.

Someone shuts a file cabinet door, and it’s so quiet in the office that you can hear it rattle. If someone dropped a pen on the carpet, I’d bet everyone from a floor up could hear it.

The customer doesn’t say anything, but as the busy line light continues to flash, I know he hasn’t hung up. I release my hold on the desk and press my fingers to my brow.

“Look—”

“Enjoy your last day of pay. I’m going to be calling your superiors the moment I hang up on you to make sure he starts hiring more competent employees!”

Thank God I didn’t apologize to this man.

I curl my fingers into a fist and lean over my desk to the point I’m nearly falling out of my chair. “Oh, you can get fucked, asshole!”

Hanging up on the call, I bring my fist down hard on the desk, making it shake with the force. The gasps that fill the office try to bring me down to a normal level of realization, but I ignore them and fall back into my chair, head shaking. With a push of my leg, I spin myself away from the computer.

I’m not expecting to come face to face with my boss.

Arms crossed and scowl prominent, he stares me down from the entrance to my cubicle. His eyes are so angry that one look at him has my stomach turning and my bag already in my hand.

There’s nothing personal on my desk besides one framed photo, so I shove it inside my bag and stand, refusing to hunch from shame.

“For the record, he was a douchebag,” I mutter.

The guy doesn’t so much as soften his glare slightly. “HR will contact you.”

“Great.”

He doesn’t give me extra room me to pass, so I make sure my shoulder makes contact with his and keep my nose turned up to the sky.

Then, I walk out of this building while ignoring the icy dread of not having a plan for what to do next.

“It’s okay.That place wasn’t good enough for you, anyway,” Nate says, his cheek pressed into his pillow.

For being only fifteen, my brother is smarter than most people double his age and has such a calm and understanding view of the world. I always said that’s why I was born with such a short temper. We had to even each other out somehow.

I press the back of my hand to his forehead and frown at how hot it is. “I’ll figure something else out for work.”

“You know, I have enough money saved to buy my own uniform this year. It’s not that much, is it?”

Lying is easier than telling him just how expensive it is to outfit a teenager for minor football and afford everything else that comes along with the season.

“No. You’re not buying anything.”

He pushes himself up onto his elbow and frowns at me. “What’s the point of me working if I can’t help out around here?”

“It’s not your job to take care of us. Your money is for you to have. Buy yourself something nice or save it. It doesn’t matter what you do with it as long as you aren’t using it on things that are my responsibility to provide. I’m your guardian, Nathan. That’s that.”

I stand from the bed and cross the small apartment to the kitchen before starting to heat up some soup in the microwave.The backs of my eyes prickle, but I refuse to cry. I’ve figured out how to fix worse problems than I’m facing right now.

Ever since our mother left on my eighteenth birthday, five years ago now, I’ve been taking care of Nathan as I would a son more than a little brother. That’s meant working shitty jobs during any hours of the day and night and scraping together pennies to keep this apartment over our heads and cheap food on the table.

We’ve hardly made it these last five years despite my shrinking belief that if I only give it a little more time, everything will end up working itself out. If anything, it’s only grown harder to keep going.

Between unpaid rent that I’ve had to beg the owner of the building for yet another extension on, the costs for Nate’s football this season, and the power bill that’s been rolled over for a second month, I feel like I’m drowning just thinking about having to find a new job.

“You’re too stubborn,” Nate says.

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