Fiona
The café was small, tucked between a laundromat and a shuttered bookstore a few blocks from my apartment, the kind of place that survived on regulars rather than foot traffic, and the pay reflected exactly that. I took the job two weeks after leaving the mansion, desperate enough for income that I hadn't bothered negotiating the modest wage they offered, grateful simply to have something steady while I figured out what came next.
It was a difficult adjustment, standing behind a counter for eight hours at a stretch, my feet aching in ways that reminded me uncomfortably of those early exhausted weeks pretending to be my mother, though at least now I only had to be myself, no wig, no careful posture, no constant fear of a single misstep unraveling everything.
The money was tight. Tig
