Nadya

The dings of the machines reverberate through my head as though I hadn't left work. The store wasn't so bad. Work was tollerable. The pay didn't even make me cringe and whine that I was wasting my time working retail. It was the clock that did it for me. That stupid clock that always seems to say Go on, Nadya. It's time to go home. Thing is - home is that last place I ever wanted to be.
No, my mother didn't abuse me. My father didn't rape me. I wasn't required to pay for my room, so long as my grades stayed fine. It was the constant feeling of being stuck in a play that I hadn't signed up to play the lead in but had been cast as the princess anyway. The eerie sense of being relied on when I wasn't even old enough to drive with two friends in my car. A new Lexus, if you were wondering.
People are always telling me that my life is perfect. I should be happy. I should be so grateful. I should be thanking my lucky stars that I have such a wonderful life. I shrug. I jerk my head noncommittally. I continue my strict regime of unhappiness and loathing.
I begin my walk - yes, I walk home. I know I have a car but the sheer cost of gas prices takes a third of my pay check each day and I can't handle that at seventeen - home and rub my eyes hard. Stupid contacts.
I'm rubbing my eyes, lost in thought, walking accross the parking lot, and running straight into John Doe. Not that his name was John Doe. I just never learned his true identity, so John is a good way of not getting confused. Focus!
So John, rather than help me up, curses me off and orders me to help him pick up his shit. I was doing so without him yelling at me, thank you very much, but stop when he treats me like dirt. The bag I was holding out to him before I now dropped and walked away.