Alphas lost mate

Life is complicated...

This will be a good start…

There is nothing wrong with working in a coffee shop…

Even if you finished at the top of your class…

Even if you were the class president and took part in every available project(minus sports) in high school...

Even if everybody expected you to choose a good-paying carrier path…

But you just couldn't take your parent's money and choose something that wasn't right for you... something you would hate... something that you would do all of your life and it would kill you every day... it would take a piece of your soul over and over... until there would be nothing left... just emptiness...

Who makes an eighteen-year-old choose a carrier path?

They are just children.... they...

Breath Natale...

Breath...

Deep breaths...

Focus on the task at hand...

You need to focus on this, not your anxiety or life crises...

I closed my eyes... took deep breaths... and concentrated on the Arctic Monkeys low beats soothing me... and unclenched my hands from my steering wheel...

I unbuckled my seat belt...

Assured myself that going home wasn't a choice... I pulled out the key from the ignition... gathered my bag from the passenger seat... and climbed out of the car...

It will be okay...

You can do it...

I took another deep breath and walked to the employee entrance ten minutes earlier than we agreed upon.

As I got closer, I saw the owner of the small coffee shop unlocking the door.

Jasmin Brooks opened the "Coffee Fox" in the late nineties. There was a small dinner here before,at least I think there was. Now it is a small coffee shop at the edge of the town. It is a warm and cozy place, it has this homey feel to it and the coffee here is the best, freshly blended and all that.

Jasmin is in her late forties. Her red hair had a few grey streaks and she dressed only in earthy tones and was flowy. Well, she is a toned-down hippy... well as hippy as our town would accept,which was not much at all.

Jasmin and my mother went to school together and that is how I got this job. After my last attempt at working in a clothing shop, that left me more than ready to change on the career path.

My previous job ended when one of the clients decided to walk into the shop and throw a major tantrum. She trashed all of our manikins and shouted some rude things at me, then decided to give me some pieces of wisdom she thought I needed. I called the cops on her and later that day was fired, because she was the manager's girlfriend. She believed I was sleeping with her man for the job and thought it would be a great idea to take her revenge on the shop he worked at.

The funny thing about it was that this was my third day there and her man, as she put it, had a habit of leaving the shop for what he called personal reasons. And he was away on one of those breaks when she arrived at the shop.

So yeah... this had to be better than that? Well, at least I hope it will be.

"Good morning, Natale. You are early." Jasmin greeted me with a big smile on her face.

"Good morning, Jasmin. I was so thrilled to begin working that I couldn't sleep..." She didn't need to know that I hadn't slept because anxiety kept me wide awake the whole night.

"Oh, great. I'm so happy that you decided to join us. Come on, I will show you where you can put your things."

And she led me to one of the back rooms, which had a few lockers, a table and a few chairs.

"Put your things in the empty locker to the left of you. Here is your apron. Meet me at the front when you are ready. I will show you around."

"Great... Thank you..."

She smiled at me one last time and left me to get ready.

I twisted my long dark brown hair into a bun at the back of my head, put my bag in the locker and left to meet Jasmin at the front of the shop.

She showed me around, explaining all of my tasks for the day and where to find the things I would need and how to use them.

Then she opened the shop and my first day began.

It all went smoothly.

There was the morning rush, people getting a coffee on their way to work.

But after that, it was kinda slow. A few locals came in, but other than those few frequent customers, it was quiet.

Around six, Jasmin said that I could go home.

I thanked her and got ready to leave when a man entered the coffee shop.

He was over six feet tall, a big, muscular mountain of a man... he had short black hair and a huge tattoo on the side of his neck that was peeking from under his green and blue flannel shirt...

I wanted to spend more time checking him out, but I was afraid of being spotted.

As these thoughts crossed my mind, the big man lifted his head as if he heard me call his name and our eyes met...

I could feel my cheeks heat as I rushed to the back room.

My heart was racing and I wasn't sure why. I saw men before, hot men, but he... he was something else.

I pushed him out of my mind and continued dressing. As I walked to the car, my phone began to ring and it was my mother.

"Hi, mom."

"Hi, honey. How was your first day?"

"It went well. Jasmin is great."

"Good, we are so happy for you."

"Thanks, mom."

"Of course, honey. Will you be coming over for dinner this evening?"

Ever since I moved out last year, she has invited me to eat at home every day and most of the time I decline, but sometimes she manipulates me into going and that is when the party of pushing Natale into doing something we want begins.

Last time there was magically a book on dieting on the kitchen table. Previous time to that one, there was a stack of booklets of local college programs. The time before that, one of their friend's sons accidentally stumbled in for dinner. And so it happens that he was single and looking to start a family. And when I say start a family, I mean like today... like he wanted to put a baby in me as soon as he could. Creepy...

I know that they don't mean anything bad by it. They think that they are helping, but it isn't so easy.

They can't fix me like that.

I'm not them. I don't want to be the perfect housewife to a wealthy man.

I really don't know what I want to do.

"Mom... I have to get up early tomorrow for work..."

"Okay... but will you come over this Saturday?"

"Yes, I already told you I would."

"Great, honey, daddy will be so happy. See you then."

"Okay, mom. See you then."

And I hung up.