The letter fell from her hands as she sat in down in the tattered old arm chair. Had she really been hired? Had all the years of internships and hard work finally paid off? Alexandria picked the letter up and reread the opening line.
Dear Miss Scott,
We are pleased to announce that we have reviewed many applicants and we have decided that you are the perfect addition to Meek Records.
She still couldn’t believe it. She had dreamed of working for a record label as long as she could remember. But she never thought that she would make that dream a reality. Meek Records was a major label now and only hired the best of the best.
Alexandria sat the letter down on the old brown in-table that had been passed down from sibling to sibling. And then she jumped into the tattered arm chair and began jumping up and down, screaming and doing a crazy little dance. Her dreams were coming true. Everything was falling into place. She now had the dream job she had always wanted and was finally going to be able to quit her crappy job at the bar.
Suddenly Alexandria sat down. Everything wasn’t perfect. She looked across the room at the few boxes that remained. Sitting on top of those boxes was three weeks worth of old mail. A spare key hung from the key rack. Photograph frames were missing pictures. And the damn cat was gone. Even though Alexandria hated that damn cat, she knew it was never coming back. She knew that he was never coming back.
All the happiness of the letter was gone, and Alexandria began to cry. In the three weeks since Seth had left she hadn’t shed a single tear. And now she couldn’t stop from crying. Alex had moved to New York with Seth. They had been best friends for as long as the two could remember. They had never dated, never slept together, and had never even kissed. Seth was like the brother Alex always wished she had had. And Alex was the sister Seth never had.
Alex grew up in a very strict family. She was expected to be involved in everything from Girl Scouts to cheerleading, from the debate team to homecoming queen. The same as her two sisters Alice and Amy had done before her. Alex’s only brother Anthony had been captain of the football team, president of the student council, dated a hot cheerleader, and was prom king. After graduation he went off to New York to go to college. Alex was nine when she first went to visit him and saw her brother for who he really was. All the amazing things had Anthony had done back home, the face that he put on to impress their parents, was a lie.
Anthony was gay. Their parents wanted nothing more to do with him and treated him as if he were a stranger at holidays. Alex was the only one who stood by her brother’s side all those years ago. And she was the one who took it the hardest when the police called to tell their family that Anthony had been beaten to death outside a club. But Seth was there to help her pick up the pieces and hold her together. And he had been there almost every day after.
Alex swore that she would never let her parents pushy, strict ways get in the way of her life. She was never a Girl Scout, hated the cheerleaders, failed in debate and declined nominations for homecoming queen. Instead Alex joined the show choir. She designed sets for drama productions, she boycotted the prom when they wouldn’t let boys wearing dresses enter, and she made a petition to stop the dissection of frogs. Alex was everything her sisters weren’t, and everything her brother wanted to be. And she had her best friend beside her.
When Alex and Seth made the decision to move to New York and go to college, Alex’s parents were outraged. They had already lost one child to what they called the “demons of New York”, they weren’t prepared to lose another. But Alex being Alex assured them that things would be different.
And they had been. Alex and Seth both graduated. Seth had a degree in marketing and Alex had a major in music business with a minor in musical vocals. The only person who had ever really heard Alex sing was Seth. And try as he might to get her to pursue a career in singing, she wanted to be the person who made dreams come true.
But here she sat in the empty apartment that they shared for two years together. All that remained of Seth and Alex’s fifteen year friendship was a small stack of boxes with three weeks worth of old mail sitting on top. There had never been a situation in her life that she hadn’t had Seth right beside her to guide her, to support her and to share her pain, sorrow, joy or happiness with.
In a haste decision she picked up her cell phone and sent a simple text to Seth. She didn’t want this text to be anything other than a simple hello and to let him know that she finally was going to have her dream job.
Jus wntd 2 say hey. I got the job J
She sat her phone down on the in table and walked to the kitchen. Seth had purchased most of the dishes when they had first moved in. So Alex was using a plastic cup from the convenience store down the block. She hated that he took everything. She hated that he left. She hated why he left. She took the plastic cup and filled it with ice adding two shots of vodka and pouring cranberry juice on top. The familiar sounds of her texts messages came from the in table. Alex could feel her heart almost drop. Although she didn’t want Seth to think she was trying to reclaim their friendship she was almost hoping that he would.
Alex picked up her phone and a single tear slide down her cheek. If she knew that she could have afforded another phone she would have thrown this one into the wall to banish the memory of the message from her mind. Instead, she chugged her drink and grabbed her purse from the couch. She was going to need a night on the town to take her mind off of things. She took one last look at the message before hitting delete and locking her apartment door.
It didn’t say much, but enough to make her crumble.
Stop texting Seth. He’s better off w/o u
(Well, what do ya think? Should I continue?)
