A New Beginning

"What do you mean you're sorry?"

"I mean about what happened all the way back in elementary school. We were suppose to go to middle school together but unfortunately I had to move and we never did. We had planned on dating but we never did because of that. I had always wanted to tell you sorry but I didn't know if I'd ever get a chance to tell you. It's something that has just always bothered me. I never forgot about you," I smiled. It was a half hearted smile that had me feeling like I had a tear in my right eye.

Aby kinda just stared at me and didn't say a single word. I looked down at my hands and just stared at the ground. I can't handle her staring at me. It made me feel as if I said the wrong thing and I'd messed everything up.

"I've always wondered what happen to you. You always said that you weren't moving and the next year you just never showed up. I did hurt at first, but then my dad moved our family up here and he bought this bar. I gave up on the idea of ever meeting you again and just moved on," I looked over at her and she was staring at the roof with her hands in her hoodie pocket. Just like I do all the time. "Honestly when I say you my heart stopped for a second. I couldn't believe that it was you. You are right though this does give us a chance to finally say what we've wanted to tell each other. Just like you I'd always wanted to tell you something," She paused and our eyes met. She took a deep breath, "Thank you for being there for me and helping me. You were the first guy I liked and you helped me when my old friend was becoming a jerk. I'm also sorry that I didn't let you date me back then, but at least now we know I was right for making you wait," We both laughed and sat back with our hands in our hoodie pocket's.

"Yeah, I guess in the end you were right for making me wait. It still sucks to know that. I really liked you back then. Either way I guess in the end we both got hurt in the end," I adjusted myself on the couch so I was sitting right. I had slide down the couch a lot since the beginning of our talk.

"So, are you ready to officially work here now?"

I closed my eyes and thought. We finally got to say everything that we thought we would of never been able to say to each other. I'm going to have to find a job and this would be a good place to work since I'll also be owning it, of course with James too. We've finally talked and got what we've wanted to say out. Working with friends would be nice, it wouldn't get that boring. I opened my eyes and looked at her.

"Yeah, I guess I'm ready to work here."

"Okay then come on. We'll go ahead and get you set up and for the next week or so, you'll be a trainee, Okay," She stood up and walked towards the kitchen doors. I hesitated at first. But got up and walked to the kitchen behind her. For the first time in a while I was finally looking forward to the future. I mean I was happy with hanging out with James and coming here to see what it had to offer but it got boring fast. Now however, I finally get to see Aby and tell her about everything that's happened to me since we moved and I get to hear about what she did.

"Hey you, Ok. You seem to be a little spaced out."

"Yeah," I smiled at her. And felt happy, "Couldn't be better."

"Ok," She gave a half smile as she grabbed two apperons holding one out to me. I took it and put it on. I looked around the room. There was a metal table sitting in the middle of the room with a metal shelf over the middle. To the right there was a flat top grill with an oven right next to it. On the other side of the room was the freezer that probably had most of the food in it. Behind us to the left was the serving window. Finally to the left was the dishwasher and sink next to it.

"Do you work alone?" I had just realized that nobody else was here.

"Yeah, most of the time at least. My dad either fires the new ones, or they only apply for part time and even then they quit after about a month," I started to wonder why they would quit after only working for a little while.

"Why don't they work for very long?" I looked up at her. She had grabbed some ingredients from somewhere, that I didn't see. She looked over at me and then looked back down at the ingredients. She had pulled out ground beef, onions, cheese, and several different contains that had different seasonings in them. There was some more stuff but I couldn't tell what the rest was.

"I think it has something to do with what they told my father. After a few times of meeting him they all would end up quitting or my dad would fire them right there and then," I looked at her as she started to grab a bowl. She put everything around the bowl and got started without skipping a beat. We stayed in the kitchen cooking different things on the menu and joking around for a long time. We made several messes and had to stop to clean them up. Once they were we would get right back to what we were doing before we had the mess. Eventually we had made more than we could eat and we just stood there looking around at everything we had made. It all looked really good. We looked at each other and laughed.

"What are we laughing about now?" I asked wiping away a tear that was coming down from laughing to hard.

"I don't even know anymore." She said as she let out a faint laugh. "Okay okay," She was now trying to stop laughing. "What exactly are we going to do with all this food." We both looked at all the food we had made. There were too many different type of burgers to even count, a boat load of fries for some reason, ribs, brisket, mac n' cheese, and a lot more.

"Why not just invite some friends over and throw a tiny party. It'd better than just letting all this food go to waste."

"Okay let's do it, so who exactly are you going to invite?" I hadn't really thought that much about who I would invite.

"You know I don't really know. I would invite my other friends over but they're all in America right now and I haven't really been out enough to really get to know anyone else," I smiled at her. "This is the first time that I've actually went somewhere and hung out with anybody."

"Well I guess I'll just send a message to all of my friends and see who all will come. Give me a few minutes to see who I can get to come over." She put her apron up and grabbed her jacket. As she walked out she pulled her phone out and started going through her contacts. When she finally left the room I breathed a sigh of relief. I pulled my phone out and called James.

"Hey, what's up Mickakipants."

I silently laughed to myself, "James, why do you still call me that?"

"Because I'm your friend. So what did you need me for."

"I'm at the bar and there's a lot of food already made you wanna come over there's going to be a tiny party."

"Wait, your at the bar?"

"Yes."

"The one we were at earlier?"

"Yes."

"With the girl that you had a crush on back in Roanoke?"

"YES," I yelled. "Now do you want to come over here or not."

"Na, I'm in the middle of something. Remind me to thank Aby for getting you out of the apartment."

"Yeah Yeah, whatever. I'll see you when I get back to the apartment." I pulled one of the stools that sat under the table out and sat down. I put my phone in my pocket and waited for Aby to get done inviting her friends. After snacking on the fries for about ten minutes she walked back into the kitchen.

"I was able to get about fifteen or so people to come over, how about you?" I smiled holding up a zero with my right hand. "You legitimately have no friends here other than James?"

I shook my head no. "I have friends but they're all in America and I haven't really gotten out to know anyone."

"Well I'll introduce you to my friends when they start showing up. Since some of them actually come here often, it'll be good for you to know them. Hopefully they can be your friends too. Anyways let's go and get the food set out on the bar and wait for everyone to get here."

We slowly brought each dish out one by one until the entire bar area was covered in different types of food. Aby had been glancing at my shoulder. When we were finally relaxing on the couch I looked at my left shoulder and realize it was the throwing knives that were on my bicep that she was looking at.

"Sorry, I forgot that I had this on when I came over here earlier."

"No it's OK, it's just I've never seen anybody actually using throwing knives. It's odd to see someone using them, there are a lot of better things to use than a them. Nowadays people would use a gun. It's faster and more accurate than anything else and it scares people away easier than some knife would. So if you don't mind me asking, why use them consider that?"

"I don't aim to hurt people with them. A gun would cause more harm than good and using these," I hand the sheath over to her so she can look at them but she only pulls one out. She examined it closely and after a while put it back. "Using a gun can easily kill someone if the need ever did arise, however; a knife can injure someone bad enough for their focus to be thrown off. Most people wince when something cuts into them."

"So you picked it because you think that you can save people from being killed?" She looked up at me from the couch and smiled.

"What's so funny?"

"I don't think that it's funny it's just that....."

Before she could finish her sentence the front door swung open and some people came into the bar. Three of them were girls and one of them was a boy.

Two of the girls were white and had short blonde hair that came mid-way down their back. One had blue eyes while the other girl had green eyes. They looked nearly identical to each other. The third girl was tan with brown hair that came only came down to her shoulder and brown eyes. She was clinging to the boy who had came in with them. He had shaggy blonde hair and greenish blue eyes.

Aby got up, gave hugs to everyone, and saying hi to them. Once she was done she came back over to the couch and dragged me up to the front were everyone else was.

"Guys this is Micyah. He's an old friend of mine and also now part of the bar, along with one of his friends. Micyah the three blonde ones over here are all siblings. The two girls are identical twins, the one on the left is Charlotte and the one on the right is Violet."

"Hi." As soon as I got done Aby elbowed me in the gut.

She got on her tippy toes and whispered into my ear, "I know I wanted to introduce you to my friends but the two of them hate mostly every guy who they met. Just be careful." She turned back to everyone and was about to go on but Charlotte interrupted her before she could continue.

"Micyah, what exactly would you call your relationship with Aby?" She had a kind but mean voice, it really threw me off for a second. Everyone in the room, however; turned towards me, except for Aby, who looked down at the ground. I didn't have time to really think about what to say so I said the only thing I could think of.

"We're old friends, of course. However, now that we've met back up, I can say that we're friends now." I looked at Charlotte who smiled. It was a warm kind smile, like one you would get from your mother.

"I like this one. He seems like a good guy." Aby looked up at Charlotte with a shocked expression. Charlotte looked at Aby and said "I don't usually like guys but I'll make an exception for him and of course my brother, Ed over there." As if on cue he put his hand out for me to shake. I took his hand and shook it.

"This shy one next to me is my girlfriend, Emily, But most of us just call her Ema." He had a slightly deep voice and spoke softly. Again, it threw me off but, it reminded me of my other friends. Even after the time we've all spent together hanging out and playing games. We'd always find someway to top off whatever we've done in the past and make everything crazy.

"Hi, I guess if Charlotte is OK with you, then I can try to talk a little more to you." I smiled and then looked at Violet. She'd been staring at me the whole time, but never said a word. Her sister nudged her and she snapped out of whatever it was.

"Hi...."

"Violet, say something more or at least ask a question. Don't just stare, it's rude." Charlotte said

"Did you come here because you felt like you could find something, or did you just come here because of some other reason?" Everyone turned towards Violet.

"You know you can't just ask someone like that when you first meet them. We're sorry but she asks weird questions sometimes." Ed said.

"It's a weird question but I'll answer it, that's not a problem. Yes, I felt like coming here I would find something and be able to help myself feel whole. Along with that though, James wanted to come up here and I just helped him and now I'm here with him." Everyone looked at me. Most of them looked surprised at my response. Violet looked at me and smiled.

"I like you." Everyone did a double take between Violet and me.

"Ummm, thank you?" I said not quite understanding what she was saying.

She had realized everyone was staring at her and I, so she said. "Don't worry, I don't plan on asking him out." Then she whispered something under her breath and Charlotte elbowed her. "Hey, I have to at least say something to keep me positive." With that being said Aby started talking louder and and then lowered her voice halfway through.

"OK, how about we start eating while we wait for everyone else gets here."

Everyone nodded in agreement. Aby, Charlotte, Ema, and Ed all started walking over to the bar area. Violet waited and walked beside me over to the bar. I could already tell that this was going to be an awkward night if this kept up, but what could go wrong.