SHATTER POINT
How many times can I break till I shatter?

Chapter 1.

It was a rather ridiculous time to work, in my opinion. Of all of the extra hours I’ve worked, working overnight on New Year’s Eve seemed to be the oddest one.

“I know how you feel,” my co-worker, Annah, sympathized as I punched in to be the lone worker for the 11pm – 8am shift on New Year’s Eve. “I worked it last year, it was my first set of overtime hours. All you get are drunken college kids buying cookies, condoms, chips, cigarettes, and Coke.”

I rolled my eyes, tying my red CVS apron loosely around my neck and slouching in the comfortable chair behind the counter. “Typical,” I said with a sigh, not looking forward to facing the rightfully underestimated college students that live in the Stonebridge/Riverside area.

The two towns are so small alone that they are often grouped together to encompass a significant landmass. It didn’t matter much to the residents: there wasn’t much Stonebridge or Riverside pride anyway. They were just two among the many forgotten towns that littered US state maps like ants on a picnic blanket.

“Stacia said you can help yourself to any of the items, but write down what you take,” Annah said as she pulled her winter coat on. “They’ll be taken out of your overtime pay, so don’t get too carried away,” she advised.

I nodded, following Annah’s gaze out of the sliding glass doors. “Be careful out there,” I told her. “I’m not sure if you’ve been following the news, but we’re in for quite the storm over night.”

She gave a small smile, used to the bipolar New England weather. “And to think, yesterday we were in a ‘heat wave’ of three 40 degree days in a row.” She laughed lightly.

Starting to head towards the door, Annah scooped her auburn-colored ponytail towards her neck, pulling her hood up.

Suddenly, she spun on her heel. “Oh, Oliver?” she called.

I was still watching her and mumbled a quiet ‘yeah?’

Annah nodded her head towards the back of the store. “There’s a girl in there got here around 10:30—”, I glanced at my watch, it was seven minutes past eleven. “Just make sure you don’t forget about her, okay?”

I gave her a curt nod and she returned it with a polite smile before disappearing through the automatic doors, a harsh wind covering her with the falling fluffy snow.

Whistling to myself, I turned the security TV on and switched it to Channel 7, where newscasters interviewed anxious New Year’s celebrants that lined the streets of large cities like New York City and Boston. The countdown on the lower corner of the screen said, “45:06:02” with the last two columns’ numbers flashing as they quickly ticked away.

Taking a deep breath, I assessed my surroundings.

“Looks like this is where I will be greeting the New Year,” I thought, a shrug and a sigh escaping my body.

Walking over to the giant cases where the soda was shelved, I grabbed a Mountain Dew, popped the cap off with ease and took a quick swig.

Heading back to the counter, I wrote my name in chicken-scratch under Annah’s, already adding ‘Mountain Dew’ under my list of consumed products. Looking up, the only thing Annah snagged was ‘Trident Bubble Gum’ and ‘Listerine: Pocket Mist’.

I was about to slump back down in the comfortable reclining chair before deciding to turn off some of the central store lights, leaving the back lights and the register lights to scarcely illuminate the middle isles.

Not like I was expecting much company anyway.

On impulse, I grabbed a bag of Cheetos off a shelf, wrote it down on my growing list, and reclined in the chair, putting my feet up on the counter as I started flicking through channels.

A good ten minutes went by and I felt myself starting to doze off when my cell phone started vibrating in my pocket, the low hum waking me up. Groggily reaching for it, I saw Annah’s name on the caller ID and opened it with a yawn.

“Hello?” My deep voice was rough with sleep.

Annah’s high, but sweet, pitched voice was anxious. “Ollie? You’re still at the store, right?”

I let out a small laugh. “It’s my night to work, remember?”

Annah let out a hesitant giggle. “Oh, right.” She paused. “Did that girl leave the bathroom yet? It’s been forty-five minutes since she came in.”

I leaned back in the chair to peer down towards the back of the store but had no honest clue if the girl Annah had told me about left or not.

“Sorry Annah, I’m not sure…”

“Oh.” Annah paused again, an awkward silence filling the phone. “Uhm, I think I left my backpack in the bathroom and it has one of my college applications in it and I was wondering if you could check… if it’s not there, it’s at my Dad’s house, and I just need to know…”

I could tell that she was as uncomfortable asking as I was prancing into the girl’s bathroom to look for a sunflower-decorated canvas bag.

“Would you mind, Ollie?”

The pleading in her voice was both guilty and hopeful and, all-in-all, undeniable. “You’re lucky it’s me,” I told her with a sigh.

I could hear Annah exhale in relief. “Thank you so much Ollie, I owe you big time!” I rolled my eyes, used to Annah’s easy enthusiasm. “If you could just find it and drop it off tomorrow when Stacia comes to take her shift, that’d be amazing.”

“Sure, no problem Annah.”

After a handful of excess apologies and a ‘Happy New Year’ greeting, Annah finally hung up, leaving me to walk to the other end of the store, desperately hoping that the bathroom was empty.

When I came to the cherry-red door, I knocked my knuckles against it a few times. I paused, knocked again, and called out, “Is anyone in here?” I paused again, listening for any sorts of muffled sound.

“Here goes,” I said quietly to myself, taking a deep breath and pushing the door open.

I automatically scanned the floor for Annah’s bag, quickly locating it underneath the sink. Lunging for it, as soon as my hand grasped the bright green handle, I pulled back, starting to retreat towards the door.

Unfortunately for me, the top of the knapsack flipped open and Annah’s box of colored pencils began their clattering escape across the tan tiled floor.

Cursing, I scrambled to pick them up, stopping when my eyes met a midnight blue pencil resting against a worn out black converse sneaker.

Oh shit.

I shot to my feet, quickly towering over a girl who stared at me with bewildered eyes.

“Uhm—” I scrambled for an explanation.

She stared at me silently, her tangled chestnut hair pulled into a very messy bun at the top of her head. Wide green eyes watched me curiously before dropping to the ground as she picked up the colored pencil.

She handed it to me, her eyes searching for an answer to my presence in the girl’s bathroom.

“Thanks,” I said hastily, cramming it back into Annah’s bag. Her eyes followed my hand, eyebrows raising questioningly as they traced the outline of the stitched sunflower on the front. “Uh…” I muttered uncomfortably. “I should go…”

I took a step towards the door but stopped when I felt her small hand grab at the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

I turned and looked at her small hand rather than her face, waiting for her to speak.

Her voice was very delicate and soft, reminding me a bit of Annah. “Can you help me?” she asked simply.

I stared, nodding my head. She turned around and I just realized that she was wearing a zip-up hooded sweatshirt backwards, the hood hanging around her neck loosely. As she turned, part of the sweatshirt in the back was unzipped, showing pale white skin with angry red scratch marks across it.

She pushed stray brown hairs away from the base of her neck and held out a box of band-aids.

Taking them, I assessed the damage on her back.

Red scratches were everywhere, crisscrossing back and forth on her small back, some angrier than others. The pale skin showed hints of red all around the cuts and I had no clue what could have led to them.

“I can’t reach to put the band-aids on,” she said quietly, her voice only a bit louder than a whisper. I pulled a large band-aid out and returned the box to her, peeling off the paper and letting it fall to the ground. “I’ll pay for them,” she promised hesitantly, shoving her hand into the pocket of her jeans and producing a crumpled up five dollar bill.

Holding the band-aid in the air above her back, I hesitated, unsure where to put it. The angry web of scratches seemed to encompass her whole back, and even a box of band-aids didn’t look like it’d be adequate.

“Let me grab some gauze and some ointment, these won’t be enough.”

She remained quiet as I stepped away, quickly grabbing the necessary items from their respective aisles, and then quickly ducking back into the bathroom I had not wanted to enter before.

“I’ve never dressed a wound before…” I admitted as she muffled a cry when I started to wipe off the dried blood. “I’ve seen it done before though…”

She shook her head, dark brown locks shaking against their elastic constraint. “I can handle it,” she assured me, biting down on her lip as I continued to wash the scratches.

Minutes passed in silence as my hands bridged the gap between us. After washing off the scratches, I hastily applied some medicine from a brown bottle I’ve saw the school nurse use when I skinned my knee in third grade. I winced as she cried out, murmuring muted apologies.

When I finished, she twisted to get a better view in the mirror, but only saw her bare back scattered with tape, gauze, and a few band-aids for the smaller scratches. I stood behind her silently, unsure if it was my cue to leave or not.

She finally turned to me, a mix of emotions clouding over her dark gray eyes. “Thank you,” she said, dipping her head a bit in a cross between a bow and a nod.

“It’s alright,” I assured her, holding the door open as she slipped out. “Just make sure you get someone else to check them. I only got a B- in health, so don’t count on those band-aids holding out for very long,” I tried joking.

As we walked through the aisle back towards the counter, she pulled out the crumpled five dollar bill again and tried handing it to me. “I’m afraid it won’t cover everything, but it’s all I have.”

I stared at it blankly and she pushed it forward again.

After several moments of thought, I shook my head. “Keep it.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I shook my head again. “It wasn’t your idea to get the gauze and the other stuff, it was mine, so don’t worry about it.”

“But at least take some money for the band-aids!” she protested.

She moved in front of me and looked up defiantly, stubbornness evident in her gray eyes.

“Fine,” I said in defeat, taking the money from her hand and wondering why she was so desperate to give away the last of her money. “But you’re taking the change.”

A faint smile crept on her face as we made our way to the counter. Sliding behind the counter, I scanned the now-half-empty box of band-aids, said ‘That’ll be $4.15’, took her five-dollar bill, and slid her change.

With an amused grin, she slid the remaining coins into her pocket. “Thanks,” she said again.

She turned towards the door and frowned as she took in the scene. A quiet ‘oh’ left her lips and she turned to me sadly. “Can I borrow an umbrella?”

Leaning over the counter, I looked out the large glass doors to be met with a cruel scene. Angry storm clouds crowded the sky, only faintly illuminated by the flickering street lamps outside as buckets of rain slapped against the dark asphalt, the echoes booming through the streets.

With a glance to the clock, I winced. “It’s only quarter to midnight, the storm is just coming in,” I told her, turning the volume up on the previously muted TV.

As the weather-woman confirmed my words, a look of panic flashed across the girl’s face. “A-a storm? B-but I need to be h-home! I c-can’t be out t-too late!” Her eyes widened as her stutter worsened and pure fear consumed her pale features.

Holding my hands out in a hopefully calming gesture, I tried to tell her to relax. “I have an umbrella, but holding a large metal object in a storm like that is suicide,” I told her, making sure to not let my gaze wander to the umbrella rack near the door.

“B-but what can I d-do?” she asked frantically, sliding her arms into her sweatshirt to spin it around. Pulling the hood up above her head, she turned to the doors again, hope evident on her face.

Stepping out from behind the counter, I quickly placed myself between her and the door. “I really can’t let you go out,” I told her sympathetically, hoping I wasn’t frightening her by being so forward.

She bit her lip, her eyes searching the ceiling as she undoubtedly searched for an excuse to leave.

Glancing at my watch, I looked at the green numbers flashing. “Look, is there anyone you can call? It’s twelve minutes short of midnight, surely there’s someone who can come and get you back home before the New Year.”

She shook her head wildly, her hair falling in messy waves around her heart-shaped face. “I-I can’t call anyone. T-they’ll know. They’ll k-know that I went o-out.” Her body began to tremble as silent sobs shook her petite frame.

I ran my fingers through my hair, taking a deep breath and suddenly wishing that Annah or Stacia were here. They’d handle the situation so much better than I would.

“How ‘bout this,” I offered, slowly walking toward her. “My shift gets out at eight, and I have a car, so I could drive you to wherever you need to be. But I can’t leave yet, and driving out in that storm is definitely not a good idea, don’t you think?” I motioned behind me to the rain and waited until she feebly nodded her head.

“So you’ll drive me home?” she asked quietly.

“As soon as my shift is over,” I promised.

She looked at me skeptically, unsure but weighing out the options. “Where can I stay until then?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but realized I hadn’t thought it through. I just said whatever I thought would get her to stop crying.

“Well, there’s a bench in the back by the pharmacy that I can bring up here, and we have some emergency blankets in the back you can use to sleep on,” I offered. “I’ll put it behind the counter so, in case anyone comes, no one will see you.”

After a little bit of consideration, she nodded, clutching her sweatshirt to her shivering body.

Quickly moving to the back, I did as I said, and her makeshift bed was set up in a matter of minutes, complete with a mini-pillow from the ‘Travel’ aisle.

Taking my seat by the main cash register, I settled down to watch the last seven minutes of the year tick away until a large boom shook the building, shattering the silence and stealing away the light.

The girl screamed, sitting up, and I murmured comforting words as I pulled out the emergency flashlights from beneath the counter. Turning one on, I walked the other to her, making sure it was in her hand before I began to retreat to my seat.

“Looks like we’ll be greeting the New Year in the dark,” I said with a sigh, looking down at my watch again. “11:54”.

I sat in silence, listening to the sound of the rain pelting the roof and the occasional sigh that escaped the girl as she tossed restlessly on the bench.

“I never asked your name,” she said after a while, her voice seeming to eerily fill the empty space between us.

“Oliver,” I replied, realizing I hadn’t asked for her name yet either.

I heard her exhale. “Oliver,” she repeated, with a seemingly approving tone. “I’m Callie.”

I nodded, aware she couldn’t see the gesture. At the same time, the alarm on my watch sounded, and I glanced down. “Well, Happy New Year, Callie.”