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Story: The Bratva's Weakness
Chapter One
Allie
Shit, shit, shit.
I’m running so late to meet my friend Katie that I’m basically forcing Zoey, the itty bitty chihuahua I’m walking to run at full speed down the street. It’s not even helping because her full run is more of a normal paced walk for me.
“Okay, Zo, we’ve gotta get a move on,” I say, scooping the little dog up into my arms because I can’t risk being another minute late to meet Katie. I’ll make sure Zoey gets her steps in on our walk back.
Being a dog walker isn’t what I ever envisioned for myself. Ever since I graduated from college last year with my degree in business administration, I feel like I’ve just been floundering around, at a complete and total loss of what to do with myself.
So, to pay the bills, I’ve been filling my time dog walking and babysitting. I’m starting to think that the people in the film industry were right when they said don’t work with dogs or kids. That’s not completely true; I enjoy pet sitting the most, but it’s the parents of fur babies and human babies that are the most difficult to deal with. The issue isn’t the work itself, it’s that I can’t think of a way forward.
These thoughts are racing through my head as I spot Katie seated on the outdoor patio of the café we agreed to meet at. She has a salad in front of her and the one across from her looks like my favorite harvest bowl..
She looks up from her phone, her bright blue eyes meeting mine as she gives me a grin and a wave. With her black hair, she looks like Snow White—a Disney princess come to life. She has no idea how beautiful she is and it’s one of the things I love most about her.
“Hi hi! I’m so sorry, Zoey here was not as fast of a walker as I’d hoped, but here we are,” I say, pulling out my chair and tying Zoey’s leash to the iron fence beside me. She promptly sits down and leaves me wondering why her owners even hire me to walk her when she basically never wants to move. But whatever, the cash is the cash.
“All good,” Katie says with an easy smile. “How’s the walking going?”
“A nightmare, as always,” I say, taking a bite of my salad. “The dogs are good… sometimes,” I say, cutting a glance to where Zoey lounges on the ground beside me. I do love walking her, despite the amount of time it takes for her to get good exercise in. “But the pay is definitely not enough to make it long term. I just don’t know what else to do, because I really like the flexibility of this and the babysitting. It gives me time to do everything else I want to do with my life. I just wish everything wasn’t so centered around the nine-to-five structure.”
Katie gives me a sympathetic nod. Even though she’s my best friend, this is why I hate opening up about my lack of direction. People pity me for it. Katie is lucky, she found her calling as anurse when we went off to college and has never looked back. I crave that kind of drive, that stability. I just hope that one day I can find it.
“I agree,” Katie says after a moment. “With my shifts, I get the flexibility I want, but that can always change at a moment’s notice.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. I continue digging into my salad and ask Katie about work. She’s based in the emergency room, so she usually has one horror story or another to share. She tells me about a man who came in the other day with a fishhook through his eyebrow, crying because his wedding was this weekend and it was going to look like he got a piercing for the occasion.
By the time we’re finishing our salads and ordering a slice of key lime pie to split (like we’ve done since college), I feel much more relaxed and at peace with my life. Just as we’re scraping off the last bits of pie, Katie’s phone starts ringing.
She flips it around letting out a grumbled “Ugh,” before taking the call. Through the line I can hear that she’s being called into work on her day off and suddenly I feel glad that there are rarely ever any emergencies in my current line of work.
“Okay,” Katie sighs, “I’ll be there in an hour.” She hangs up the phone. “Fuck,” she grumbles, tapping away on her phone. “I was supposed to pick up my brother from the airport this afternoon, he’s coming back from that trip to Colombia I told you about? For work?” I nod, recalling her mentioning how cool she thought it was that he could travel for work and how she was thinking of changing to becoming a travel nurse so she could see more of the country.
“I can get him,” I offer without really thinking. The airport in this city is a pain to get an Uber from, so it’s always easier if you have a ride.
“Oh my god, are you sure? I don’t want to put you out…”
“I literally just spent this whole lunch telling you about how I have nothing going on in my life, I can spare the few hours to grab your brother. What’s his name again?” I ask, feeling stupid for not remembering his name.
“Jim,” she says with a laugh. “He has a bunch of tattoos and dark hair, he shouldn’t be hard to miss,” she finishes.
Jim is like ten years older than us and wasn’t around when we were in college, but now that I’m thinking about it, it feels weird that I’ve never met him… or even seen him before, considering Katie and I have been friends since the moment we were assigned as roommates our freshman year of college. I’m glad our friendship has lasted the last six years because I truly don’t know what I’d do without her.
“Okay I can grab him, no problem. I’ll just have to drop Zoey back off and grab my car. What time does his flight land?”
“You’re literally a lifesaver, Al. I don’t know what I would do without you.” She tells me she’ll text me the flight details so I can track it and quickly pays for our lunch, insisting she owes me one for this, before rushing off. I still have a few hours before I need to head out, so I take my time walking Zoey back home and stop for a quick coffee before walking the short distance back to my house and grabbing my car.
I head into the house, wanting to quickly check-in on my grandfather. He “lets” me live with him because he thinks I need the help, but in reality, I think he was getting a bit lonely since my grandmother passed. And if I’m being honest, I love living with him, getting to spend more time with him. Especially in this time of uncertainty, it’s been wonderful to have his stability.
“Hey sweetheart,” he pops a kiss on my head as he grabs his jacket off the hook by the door. “I’m heading to the cribbage club and won’t be back until late.” He gives me a wink and leaves me shaking my head with a smile on my face.It’s pretty pathetic when your 75-year-old grandfather has a more vibrant social life than you,I think, my smile turning into a grimace.
I hop into my red Toyota Camry, my pride and joy purchased from thousands of hours of babysitting that I saved up from the time I was fourteen until my college graduation. I plug the airport into my GPS and head out.
The drive gives me even more time to think about all that I’m not doing with my life, my relaxation from lunch long gone. When I was in school, I interned at a variety of businesses, including retail, restaurants, and a garden center. Each job gave me the opportunity to see how to run those businesses, but none of them called to me.
I think that’s why I’ve just stayed drifting for the last few years, because nothing sounds that great to me, so I’d rather not waste my time doing any of them. The con of that is now I’m 24 and still feel like I have no direction and have been wasting time anyways.
Allie
Shit, shit, shit.
I’m running so late to meet my friend Katie that I’m basically forcing Zoey, the itty bitty chihuahua I’m walking to run at full speed down the street. It’s not even helping because her full run is more of a normal paced walk for me.
“Okay, Zo, we’ve gotta get a move on,” I say, scooping the little dog up into my arms because I can’t risk being another minute late to meet Katie. I’ll make sure Zoey gets her steps in on our walk back.
Being a dog walker isn’t what I ever envisioned for myself. Ever since I graduated from college last year with my degree in business administration, I feel like I’ve just been floundering around, at a complete and total loss of what to do with myself.
So, to pay the bills, I’ve been filling my time dog walking and babysitting. I’m starting to think that the people in the film industry were right when they said don’t work with dogs or kids. That’s not completely true; I enjoy pet sitting the most, but it’s the parents of fur babies and human babies that are the most difficult to deal with. The issue isn’t the work itself, it’s that I can’t think of a way forward.
These thoughts are racing through my head as I spot Katie seated on the outdoor patio of the café we agreed to meet at. She has a salad in front of her and the one across from her looks like my favorite harvest bowl..
She looks up from her phone, her bright blue eyes meeting mine as she gives me a grin and a wave. With her black hair, she looks like Snow White—a Disney princess come to life. She has no idea how beautiful she is and it’s one of the things I love most about her.
“Hi hi! I’m so sorry, Zoey here was not as fast of a walker as I’d hoped, but here we are,” I say, pulling out my chair and tying Zoey’s leash to the iron fence beside me. She promptly sits down and leaves me wondering why her owners even hire me to walk her when she basically never wants to move. But whatever, the cash is the cash.
“All good,” Katie says with an easy smile. “How’s the walking going?”
“A nightmare, as always,” I say, taking a bite of my salad. “The dogs are good… sometimes,” I say, cutting a glance to where Zoey lounges on the ground beside me. I do love walking her, despite the amount of time it takes for her to get good exercise in. “But the pay is definitely not enough to make it long term. I just don’t know what else to do, because I really like the flexibility of this and the babysitting. It gives me time to do everything else I want to do with my life. I just wish everything wasn’t so centered around the nine-to-five structure.”
Katie gives me a sympathetic nod. Even though she’s my best friend, this is why I hate opening up about my lack of direction. People pity me for it. Katie is lucky, she found her calling as anurse when we went off to college and has never looked back. I crave that kind of drive, that stability. I just hope that one day I can find it.
“I agree,” Katie says after a moment. “With my shifts, I get the flexibility I want, but that can always change at a moment’s notice.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. I continue digging into my salad and ask Katie about work. She’s based in the emergency room, so she usually has one horror story or another to share. She tells me about a man who came in the other day with a fishhook through his eyebrow, crying because his wedding was this weekend and it was going to look like he got a piercing for the occasion.
By the time we’re finishing our salads and ordering a slice of key lime pie to split (like we’ve done since college), I feel much more relaxed and at peace with my life. Just as we’re scraping off the last bits of pie, Katie’s phone starts ringing.
She flips it around letting out a grumbled “Ugh,” before taking the call. Through the line I can hear that she’s being called into work on her day off and suddenly I feel glad that there are rarely ever any emergencies in my current line of work.
“Okay,” Katie sighs, “I’ll be there in an hour.” She hangs up the phone. “Fuck,” she grumbles, tapping away on her phone. “I was supposed to pick up my brother from the airport this afternoon, he’s coming back from that trip to Colombia I told you about? For work?” I nod, recalling her mentioning how cool she thought it was that he could travel for work and how she was thinking of changing to becoming a travel nurse so she could see more of the country.
“I can get him,” I offer without really thinking. The airport in this city is a pain to get an Uber from, so it’s always easier if you have a ride.
“Oh my god, are you sure? I don’t want to put you out…”
“I literally just spent this whole lunch telling you about how I have nothing going on in my life, I can spare the few hours to grab your brother. What’s his name again?” I ask, feeling stupid for not remembering his name.
“Jim,” she says with a laugh. “He has a bunch of tattoos and dark hair, he shouldn’t be hard to miss,” she finishes.
Jim is like ten years older than us and wasn’t around when we were in college, but now that I’m thinking about it, it feels weird that I’ve never met him… or even seen him before, considering Katie and I have been friends since the moment we were assigned as roommates our freshman year of college. I’m glad our friendship has lasted the last six years because I truly don’t know what I’d do without her.
“Okay I can grab him, no problem. I’ll just have to drop Zoey back off and grab my car. What time does his flight land?”
“You’re literally a lifesaver, Al. I don’t know what I would do without you.” She tells me she’ll text me the flight details so I can track it and quickly pays for our lunch, insisting she owes me one for this, before rushing off. I still have a few hours before I need to head out, so I take my time walking Zoey back home and stop for a quick coffee before walking the short distance back to my house and grabbing my car.
I head into the house, wanting to quickly check-in on my grandfather. He “lets” me live with him because he thinks I need the help, but in reality, I think he was getting a bit lonely since my grandmother passed. And if I’m being honest, I love living with him, getting to spend more time with him. Especially in this time of uncertainty, it’s been wonderful to have his stability.
“Hey sweetheart,” he pops a kiss on my head as he grabs his jacket off the hook by the door. “I’m heading to the cribbage club and won’t be back until late.” He gives me a wink and leaves me shaking my head with a smile on my face.It’s pretty pathetic when your 75-year-old grandfather has a more vibrant social life than you,I think, my smile turning into a grimace.
I hop into my red Toyota Camry, my pride and joy purchased from thousands of hours of babysitting that I saved up from the time I was fourteen until my college graduation. I plug the airport into my GPS and head out.
The drive gives me even more time to think about all that I’m not doing with my life, my relaxation from lunch long gone. When I was in school, I interned at a variety of businesses, including retail, restaurants, and a garden center. Each job gave me the opportunity to see how to run those businesses, but none of them called to me.
I think that’s why I’ve just stayed drifting for the last few years, because nothing sounds that great to me, so I’d rather not waste my time doing any of them. The con of that is now I’m 24 and still feel like I have no direction and have been wasting time anyways.