"Okay, here is how you do this." The girl bends over grabbing a case off of the red wheeled device that I think she called a 'u-boat'. My mind was trying to focus as she grabbed an item from the bag and started searching the shelf for it.

"Anything on this u-boat-' Oh thank god I remembered at least one thing correctly 'will be on this aisle. You see here it says aisle six and fun fact that is where we are. We need to check all of these items and make sure they aren't empty on the shelf. If we can put them out we need to. Our goal is to get as many things off of this cart without overfilling the shelf or making new rows. We need to know what we are out of so we can order it, does that all make sense?"

I nod at her, but I'm sure I look like a deer trapped in headlights. How was I supposed to figure out where everything was?

"Everyday you will be assigned a u-boat and it will be your job to work it, once you get better you will get more than one assigned to you, and so on and so forth. Eventually they may let you start doing the ordering, but you don't need to worry about that right now. It's pretty self explanatory." She was nice, the longer she talked the more I felt like I could possibly manage this job.

She grabbed a case and handed it to me, before pointing in the general direction of where it was located. I began searching the shelves like a mad woman trying to find the exact brand of beans I held in my hand. Why have I never noticed how many brands there are? Then you have to take into account the low sodium, high sodium, loaded, unloaded, and god knows what else these cans could possibly say.

"It gets easier after a while," She smiled again, and I cursed myself mentally for not paying enough attention to catch her name. I searched her apron looking for some sort of name tag that would help me identify her. There was nothing.

"How long have you been doing this?" I question, feeling some sense of accomplishment once I finally found the right row, only to be disappointed that it was already full and there was nothing else that could be added. I put the case back on the u-boat, grabbing another one and turning back to the shelves. This felt like it would take forever.

"I've been here for a few months. I really love this kind of job, something about finding where everything goes and placing it on the shelf really makes me happy!" She was beaming with joy as she emptied yet another box.

A customer comes down the aisle looking at our boxes as if they were ruining her day. The girl quickly grabs them before apologizing to the customer.

"We need to keep the aisle looking clean and make sure we don't get in the way of any customers. This is why the four am shift is my favorite. You get here hours before the store even opens and you can make as big of a mess as you would like." She laughed, grabbing another box and going directly to where it goes on the shelf.

"I'm sorry, this is all so much and I seem to have forgotten your name," I felt awful asking, but she was such a sweet girl that it was eating at me not knowing. At least not being smart enough to remember.

"Oh no worries about that, I'm not really good with names and I've already forgotten yours too. I'm Sara." She places her hand out for me to shake and suddenly I feel much younger than I actually am.

"Maple," I mumble, grabbing another case before trying to place it on the shelf.

We worked like this for what felt like hours, and I helped her work through three u-boats before it was time for our lunch break.

"Is this your first job?" She asks, showing me to the break room. She grabs a sandwich out of the fridge and plops it down on the counter before taking a huge swig of her coca-cola.

"Yes, I'm not from around here, I grew up with a horrible mom that didn't really love me, so she just gave me money to shut up." Mental facepalm. I didn't need to tell her all of that, there was no reason for her to listen to me air out my dirty laundry. Let me guess, I should tell her also that being in a store was already hard for me since the shooting that happened while we were still in Washington.

I tried to pull the image out of my mind, I needed to move past that, and hopefully being in a store all the time would help me with that.

"Oh, where are you from? I'm not from here either actually. My husband is here for work." She smiles, and it makes me wonder if her face hurts from smiling all the time.

"Washington, what does your husband do?" I couldn't help but wonder what had brought her here, she didn't look old enough to be married.

"He is in the military, he is stationed at the base down here. We should be here for a few more years." She paused for a moment, taking a huge bite of her sandwich. "We actually might head to Washington next, depending on how his orders work out. I don't really know how the military works, I haven't been a part of it for very long."

"How long have you been married?" I wasn't sure why I felt so comfortable talking to this girl, but something about her pulled me in. She seemed like she really cared, and yet she seemed so sure about her choices. I was starting to feel more and more that way, the longer we were away from home.

"We've only been married for about six months. But I've known him since about middle school." She chuckled again, the large smile still plastered across her face. At first it seemed fake and annoying, but the more time I spent with her the more I realized she meant it when she smiled.

**Staton**

"You better be careful with that thing!" My manager shouted over my shoulder. The stress built up in my chest as I held the power tool above my knees. This is how he told me to sit, using my legs to reinforce the tire. I shouldn't have lied to him when I told him I'd never used one of the things before.

I placed the bit on the lugnut, a word that I had only learned earlier in the day. I took a deep breath before finally pulling the trigger on the device. A loud wail sounds through the shop as the torque nearly knocks the power drill out of my hands.

"There you go!" My manager, whose name I'd since found out was Ricky, shouts. "Next time don't lie about using a power tool, but you seem to have it down now. Go ahead and take that tire off so we can get things movin' around here." Ricky walked away and headed towards the front of the car. He grabbed another power drill, set it up, and got started on the front wheel.

In the time it took me to get the rest of the lug nuts off of my tire, he'd removed the other three.

"You need to pick up the pace boy. Think of it like a Nascar race." He tossed the tires to the side. I nodded, following suit with the tire I'd removed myself.

"Sorry sir," I muttered.

"Don't call me that stupid word boy, just call me Ricky." I nodded again. I wasn't sure how to respond to that and everything in this shop had me out of my element. I couldn't believe Ricky hadn't fired me and sent me home the second I'd shown up to work dressed in a button-down and some nice jeans. Ricky had laughed at me the second I walked through the front doors.

"We got a pretty boy over here!" Ricky had shouted, calling the rest of the employees over to meet me. I was so embarrassed and thankful when he gave me a uniform to get started. Was that something I was supposed to have already? I'd never worked a job before, let alone one like this. Every time I saw my dad go to work or anywhere for that matter he always dressed the same. I had assumed that was just how you dressed to go to work.

"Are you from around here?" One of the guys had asked, I think his name was Tony but I couldn't quite remember. He helped me use the tire changer and switch to the new tires the customers had brought in.

"No I'm not from here, I'm from Washington." I cursed myself for answering his question. I needed to learn to not give out so much information right away. Sure Tony didn't care where I lived but if I told the wrong person the wrong information they could use it against me and somehow let our parents know where we were at if they didn't already.

Maybe we shouldn't have pulled out the money using ATMs, maybe we should have gone to banks instead.

The more my thoughts raced in my head the more I realize how stupid we had been this entire time. We really seemed to find every little detail and figure out how to just blow everything up.

"Are you listening?" Tony asked, waving his hand in front of my face.

"Yes, sorry... well I mean no. What did you say?" I couldn't even pretend like I had heard a word he had said.

"Okay, I guess we will show you how this works again on the next tire. Grab that one from over there." Tony points towards the next tire in the stack. My cheeks flushed a bright red with the embarrassment of not listening.

I needed to focus and do better.

The rest of the day went smoother, as I did my best to really pay attention to what was being said. By the time I was done my brain was fried from all the information I had learned, my arms were sore from throwing tires around all day, and my legs were stiff from walking non stop. The only time I had been able to sit down was during my lunch break and even that was only thirty minutes. I'd need to plan on packing a lunch for tomorrow as there was no time to get food anywhere in that short period of time.

My stomach growled as I left the shop. Standing on the side of the road, I pulled my phone out to order my Uber. Breygan was serious about not being willing to drive everyone around and this was extra frustrating as without a second vehicle I'd have to pay too much for someone else to do it.

We didn't even get to bring up the car conversation last night after Breygan and Aria had stormed off. It was weird to think about how they had acted. Why were they getting so worked up over not having found a job?

"What are you doing out here?" Tony asked, interrupting me from my thoughts.

"Waiting for my Uber." I muttered, hoping he didn't hear me. Tony cocked his head, making sure the doors were locked before meeting me by the side of the road.

"Nope, come on, I'll give you a ride home."

"You don't have to do that!" I practically shouted, hoping that he would take me seriously.

"Uber's are overpriced, come on. You can slip me some cash to pay for gas if you absolutely must. Just say I'm your Uber and tip me well."