2 Iced Coffee

Anya was wondering how many days it had been as she stared up at the ceiling. Had she always had popcorn ceiling? How cheap. But Anya guessed it was fitting for her life right now. Maybe she should redecorate her place to reflect her current self. Trash.

Four quick raps sounded on her door. Anya knew who it was immediately and rolled further into her plush bed. "I can't deal with her today." The apartment shook as the door was pounded on even louder. Soon, there was a steady stream of bangs on the door without pause. "Jesus! I don't want to talk to you Alex!"

"Whether you want to talk to me is irrelevant. Let me in now." Alex waited a beat before she began slamming her fist on the door again.

Anya lifted her head from the pillow. "For Christ's sake Alex! The complex is going to kick me out at this rate!" She pulled the blankets above her head covering her ears. "LEAVE. ME. ALONE."

The pounding stopped for a moment before Alex spoke, "You and I both know that I have a key to your place. Either you let me in or I'm coming in." She waited for an answer. "I am trying to be polite."

Anya could almost have laughed. "How in the hell is your percussion demonstration being polite? I might have thought a ten man SWAT team was trying to break into my apartment." There was no reply. "Well, I'm not opening that door, so whatever you are going to do you might as well do it."

At this, there was a quiet jingle of a key being placed into the door. Anya could hear Alex close the door and walk down the hall. She had a pile of papers in one arm and an iced coffee in the other. She waited at Anya's bedroom entrance and paused as Anya rolled over to look at her.

"What, you didn't even take off your shoes? Polite my ass." Anya tried to pull the covers back over her head, but Alex strode across the room ripping them off of her. "But oh! I am indecent! How dare you!" Anya rolled her eyes as she sat up.

"Here," Alex said as she shoved the iced coffee into Anya's hands. "Double shot of espresso, and it has oat milk even though I had to bring my own." Anya reluctantly took the coffee. "I know this is your absolute favorite so don't even try to act like you don't want it."

Anya looked down at the coffee, but she did not drink it. "Why are you here manager Kim?"

"I think it's pretty obvious why I am here"

"Enlighten me."

Alex sighed as she began digging through the pile of paperwork. "I have some good news and bad news." She didn't wait for a response as she continued, "It seems that GR Studios has cancelled our contract to be featured on Mona's next album. Our contract with Gummy Candy has also been retracted, so we won't be doing the commercials anymore." Alex looked up from her glasses. "We have lost quite a bit of our recording contracts so we will have to find new alternatives."

At this Anya flopped back onto the bed. "How unexpected."

"I'm afraid sarcasm is not going to improve our situation." Alex's eyes looked as if she hadn't slept in a day... maybe even days. "But, there is good news." She chirped in a way-too-high voice. "You will get to take that vacation in Mexico this summer after all. Beaches for days!" Her smile was cracking at this point.

"So the tour is cancelled too?" Anya said. Alex's face remained in that fake grin. "I can't say that I am surprised." Anya fiddled with the straw; she lifted the coffee but didn't drink.

"Well... yes, but we do have some alternatives to make sure this break doesn't go wasted. It might be good to take some time to rest and wait for this whole thing to blow over." Alex said as she read off of one of the papers.

This 'break' Anya thought to herself, how ridiculous. "I don't know if that is possible at this point." She finally took a small sip of her iced coffee and almost sighed in relief. How long had it been since she had last eaten?

"Well at this point all we can do is wait and see." It seemed like Alex had more to say, but she was holding back. "For now we are deciding to let you spend some time... healing."

Wallowing. That's what she wanted to say Anya figured. She didn't feel like speaking anymore at this point so remained silent.

"...O.K. so I'm going to leave some paperwork here for you. Please look at it if you have the time. I'm going to order you some takeout later today, and I expect you to eat it. I'll be back tomorrow to check in on you." Alex said, rattling off her check list. "Of course if there is anything you need don't hesitate to call me."

Yeah, I definitely won't be doing that Anya decided. She gave Alex a look as if to say 'get out', so Alex stood up and walked to the door.

Alex looked back at Anya as she murmured, "You know, I do really care about you." She looked into Anya's eyes, really looked. "Things are going to get better Anya." With that she turned and left the apartment.

Anya was again left alone in the quiet apartment. She hated the silence. She downed her coffee and laid back into the covers. Anya decided that she was going to need a lot more sleep to deal with this shit.

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