Chương 9: Chapter 9

The bell above the door rang and she looked up, a family of four, mother and father, daughter and son, entering with warm smiles and Nordic accents, wrapped up in padded jackets and scarfs despite the warmth of the shopping centre.

She smiled thinly, vacantly, as they approached the counter and ordered their drinks, and, as she busied herself at the machinery behind the till, tried not to think about the girl in the Slayer jacket, tried not to think about Callum, about romance, about loss, about the end of Christmas and the beginning of the new year, about everything she had lost, and that which she would never gain.

She placed several cups of something beige, something frothy, on a tray, and, despite her current employment status, asked herself why people drunk such things.

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