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Grieving, Emily has realized, is a full-time job. One that needs her full, undivided attention.
Soon after, Emily learns that this means she doesn't have time for anything else that requires her to be present. She learns she doesn't have time for college anymore. But once she breaks up with college, Emily finds breaking up with her girlfriend comes next.
Things were nice with Paige but she couldn't stand Paige looking at her with pity whenever she couldn't bring herself to get out of bed and go to class. Emily needed space and Paige was overbearing even though she didn't mean to be. Obviously, Emily knew that it was because Paige cared. She wanted to appreciate it, she really did, but she didn't have too much emotion to give out.
That's how she finds herself working at some shitty bar, still stuck in California. She moved out of her and Paige’s apartment with a lot more baggage than she had when she moved in but a lot less money.
So, she takes the gig as a bartender at this run-down bar in a shady neighborhood. The work isn't hard and it isn't unpleasant, except for her boss. He isn't that bad of a guy but he still hits on her. Her boss being a bit of an asshole makes her feel less bad about lying about having previous bar-tending experience.
The bar's around some local college that doesn't remind her anything of Stanford, so she loves it. A good amount of rowdy college students fill up its tiny, chipped walls. Emily’s sure they should probably be at a club or party, but the bar doesn't ID and drinks are dirt cheap, so she sees the appeal.
Plus, it's not the type of city where a lot of people leave, or come for that matter. The city is riddled with family-owned businesses, so, everyone knows everyone and everyone knows where to go if you want a drink or a bite to eat. It’s the neighbourhood bar and most of the locals at the bar don’t seem to keen about newcomers. She’s personally never really had an issue with it. Emily figures, how can you really dislike someone who’s getting you your booze? At least most people seem comfortable with her now, even using her name and not calling her ‘Stanford’.
After living in the city for a little less than a year, it’s grown on her. She doesn’t think she’s achieved perfect harmony yet. Sometimes she finds herself staring at the guys at the bar, imagining how her father would fit in with them. Sometimes, there’s too much familiarity when they call her Em or in the cologne they wear. Days like this, when she remembers too much, she feels something inside her crack and she worries she might run out of glue.
But, most of the time, she lives in balance. Her days bleed into each other where nothing exciting happens and she’s completely okay with it. She lives for the banality of her life where she can bartend in mostly peace, as much peace as you can get with rowdy college students, and suffer in peace as well. It was going really well until some girl decided to ruin her harmony.
Emily doesn’t really mind newcomers, it’s not her job to. She serves drinks to whoever walks into the crappy bar and orders a drink. The problem with this girl is that she sticks out like a sore thumb. She's used to seeing the local college kids and this girl reeks of Ivy League. So much so that, as the girl downs her straight vodka, Emily can see the prestige roll off her shoulders.
Maybe that's why Emily doesn't cut her off when she probably should have, maybe she enjoys seeing the way this girl unravels herself. So Emily keeps giving her drinks, and she keeps drinking, spinning, unraveling.
But Emily knows that after spinning comes crashing, usually followed by burning. And Emily has had enough rubble to clear out in her life, enough ashes to clean up. The girl’s blazer has come off, her shirt’s partially unbuttoned, and Emily can tell she's well on her way to crashing.
The girl comes to the bar way too often and sticks out way too much. Emily imagines she can afford to go to somewhere a little nicer, some place with less graffiti in the bathrooms. But, she comes to Emily’s bar and brings all her baggage too. Right now, she’s dumping it on the bar table. Emily doesn’t want to have to clean anything up.