I mean, I wasn’t that privileged, but I never really had to either I guess.
One guy in particular asks me a question literally every two minutes, to the point in which I just want to give him a quick smack across the face to knock some common sense into him so that he can finally stop wasting my time.
“So, does it matter which door you start the mopping at?” he asks me.
“Huh?” I say. The real response I want to give is something along the lines of ‘why are you asking me such a stupid question?’
“Because otherwise you could get yourself cornered in and half to walk across a clean floor with your dirty shoes,” he explains.
Warren pauses from showing a girl how to empty the paper shredder and looks over at him to roll his eyes.
“No,” I say. “Start wherever you want. None of us really care that much. Just walk over it. No one’s going to even notice.”
Just like the rest of your time here at Ridgecrest.
I almost feel bad for them. I only found out I was coming here after my last semester of high school. It must be even worse knowing in advance.
I get ready to walk away from him and go see if there’s anything else that we still need to show them before Warren and I can start our own work, but the guy reaches out and grabs my arm.
“Can you show me the best way to hold the mop?” he asks as he lifts up the mop handle with his other hand.
“Are you serious?” I just can’t even keep my inside voice ‘inside’ anymore. This guy is ridiculous. “Hold the mop however the hell you want to.”
“But I’m sure you must have a trick to holding it just the right way to make it go faster,” he says without letting go of my wrist. “You know, since you’ve been doing this job for a while now.”
Something about the way he’s holding my wrist suddenly makes my stomach twist. This guy isn’t an idiot.
He’s toying with me.
“Can you let go of me?” I phrase it more like a command than a question.
He hesitates for a second, but it’s just enough time for Warren to jump in. I don’t even see him coming when all of a sudden, Warren is just standing beside me and grabbing onto the arm of the guy’s hand that has a hold of me. From the look of his knuckles turning white, Warren is gripping him pretty hard.
Hard enough to bruise.
“She told you to let her go,” Warren growls.
“Dude, relax,” the guy says as he releases his fingers from my wrist.
Instead of just letting him go, Warren almost throws the guy’s hand back toward his body.
“W fe’re done for today,” Warren announces to the group.
“But we haven’t finished with the—”
The girl at the paper shredder doesn’t get a chance to finish her sentence before Warren cuts her off.
“We’ve done enough, and Aubrey and I still need to finish our shifts. You guys go home. I’ll deal with the staff about it.”
They give each other confused looks, but none of them were really thrilled about having to be here anyway, so they jump at the opportunity to cut out early, and within minutes the building is cleared with the exception of Warren and me.
“You okay?” he asks as he lifts my hand to his face to take a better look at my wrist.
I’m pretty stunned to see this protective side of Warren.
“Yeah,” I say as I take my hand back and rub my wrist. It does sting a little bit, thanks to that guy’s nails digging into my skin. I didn’t even notice it at the time, my mind was so preoccupied with just what the hell was going on. “I’m fine.”
“Come on,” he says. “I know where the first aid kit is, and you should probably run some antiseptic on those scratches. It wouldn’t surprise me if that guy had rabies or some shit.”
I stifle a laugh and follow him into the bathroom. Warren takes out the peroxide and I hold my hand over the sink as he pours it onto my wrist.
I wince, but don’t draw back.
“Thanks,” I say with a smile after we’re done. I’m not quite sure how to feel about him acting so kind with me. It definitely seems a bit out of character.
Though he wouldn’t be the only one acting out of character lately. It must be something in the air.
“No problem,” he says while we walk back out to finish our work. “That guy shouldn’t have put his hands on you to begin with.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I agree. “But trust me, I’ve been through worse.”
Warren sets down the mop bucket that he was just picking up and looks at me with what I can only describe as a briny mix of anger and disgust.
“I know you have,” he says quietly. “But none of it should have ever happened. That advisor is lucky that he still has a job, and that he still has hands attached to his body.”
Warren looks the same way that he looked that day at lunch when he snapped his spoon in half.
“Why does it make you so angry what the advisor did to me?” I ask him. “I mean, I get it that the whole thing was wildly inappropriate. But you act as if you are personally enraged by it. Sometimes I think you’re angrier than me, and I lived through it. Why is that?”
Warren’s eyes widen and he looks completely caught off guard. He is about to open his mouth and say something, but then he thinks better of it and reaches down to grab the mop bucket again instead.
“Come on,” he says without looking back at me again. “Let’s get cleaned up and leave. I don’t want to stay here any longer tonight.”
As soon as we get everything put away, we grab our coats and get ready to go
