It Never Comes Easy

2. When it’s due

She remembered whenever she stayed up all night trying to finish that assignment due a couple of hours later, those university days when sleep was a luxury because she hardly ever got any.

It was always an assignment after the other or exams even tests, projects were the most serious of all.

Her friends lied, maybe not a total lie but it was fallen into that category at some point. They did tell her she could rest peaceful when she finished her degree, it would be an easy road after that.

It had been some days. Most of them though she reacted the very same things she did at university, she stayed up till midnight typing away a script — possibly a rewrite or just adding in what they wanted to happen not what she thought should have happened, and in worse nights she had to write everything from the beginning. The very first monologue to the last.

Most of those days she would wake up with a sore neck, her wrists too got it bad and her eyes? They had suffered the most, strained on the light of her laptop and despite the yearning need to rest — the constant yawns elapsing her mouth as she typed, she just couldn’t.

As of the thoughts she held of the morning and the day ahead, she knew the headache would be brutal and it had been.

It had led her were she was now, rummaging through the bathroom cabinet for pain killers. Tossing two pills into her mouth she swallowed down the medication with the help of the running tap water.

It had been her life for eight years now. Taking pain killers to relief the throbbing pain on her head, anti depressants for her social anxiety and depression as prescribed by the doctor.

Now it was more of a routine, maybe a daily morning breakfast. A dose to get her through it all, again and again.

Staring right back at her reflection she pursed her lips as her grey eyes studied her facial features. She looked tired — she was tired not only because of the eye bags under her grey eyes or her worn out facial features but she felt drained, physically.

She needed a strong shot of caffeine if at all she was going to make it through the day.

Closing the faucet Rue exhaled, with one last glance at herself—she definitely needed caffeine, it would make it better—she walked out the bathroom heading straight to her made bed.

She had updated over the years from the tiny old apartment to a more luxurious one, with an accommodation welcoming her and one additional guest. And the most beneficial factor was the neighborhood, it was much safer to say the least.

With one swing of her left hand she grabbed the laptop bag strap and swung it over her shoulder, a second later walking out her room and down the stairs.

Every time she walked down those same steps her mind always kept racing on and on about where she could have been, if her first book caught so much attention—if it failed.

Every time the answer was the exact same, she would be wrapped around with the endless emotion of failure and still stay in a terrible place. But everything worked out even if it wasn’t exactly all highs.

§

Rue always hated when people stared at her too long and with that judging face. It always felt like she was a lab rat being studied from the inside out, finding each flaw, secrets—deep, very deep inside.

And that was the exact look the man across the room kept giving her as she stood in line.

At first she thought she missed a button or mismatched them or worse, worn her shirt inside out. Discretely, as much as she could that was, she looked down to her shirt checking it and to a relief it wasn’t the case.

So the second thought that crossed her mind was that the zip on her black jeans was open, yet again that wasn’t the case either.

For her peace of mind she looked away from the man and tried as best to ignore the stare on her back.

Soon she hadn’t needed to try hard to ignore the man as one less person moved from the line making her only a person away to order.

Then and there her mind started racing, saying the same order over and over in her mind—she didn’t want to forget or freeze when it was her time.

Strangers weren’t her thing, interactions in general.

The brunette woman in front of her moved out the line two cups in both hands, to her amusement she walked up to the man that had been staring at her all that time. He probably wasn’t staring at her but maybe the brunette — she made a big deal out of nothing.

The sound of someone clearing their throat brought her attention back to where she stood.

Offering an apologetic smile at the person behind her she took a step forward, coming in contact with the counter.

“A black coffee.” she breathed out relieved.

“Anything with that?” a feminine voice softly asked glancing up from the cash register.

Shaking her head she dropped her gaze with the dark brown eyes and looked down to her palms.

The woman really had beautiful eyes.

Not long after that had Rue been receiving her ordered coffee. She took a couple of cash bills from her back pocket for it to only be rejected by the woman, who happened to be smiling as Rue looked up.

“It’s on the house.”

Rue only nodded before grabbing the coffee moving out the way for the next person. What she did after left a confused expression on the woman’s face.

A shy smile on her face she carried her coffee off the counter. “A tip.” she mumbled quickly walking away not wanting to be any more late, plus she was ignoring the question that she would have asked.