Resisting Molly
Have you ever had one of those days where life just decides to screw with you? Well, I was having one of those days. It had started before I left the house for work that morning, and I desperately needed to talk things over with Brynn, my best friend. Of course it was Saturday so a steady stream of customers kept me hopping until lunchtime and I had no chance to text or call. When I had applied for a job at the used video game store two years ago I didn’t know the difference between an Xbox and a pop tart, but the owner had hired me anyway on a hunch. I was young, female, sort of pretty in a wholesome, girl next door kind of way, and most of his clientele consisted of geeky, awkward guys in their teens and twenties. Sales had spiked almost twenty percent in the first month after I started working there and my boss immediately gave me a big enough raise to make sure I wasn’t going to find a better job anywhere else in town. I wondered if he’d be able to give me another one so I could afford to stick around.
As soon as I could break away for lunch I pulled out my cell phone and called Brynn. I had no idea I was about to get nailed with the second half of the double-whammy life had in store for me.
“Molly!” she squealed, “I was just about to call you. You won’t believe it!”
“What?”
“I got the scholarship! The other girl dropped out.”
She had been the runner up for a veterinary scholarship at Texas A&M University, one of the ones they set up to encourage more women to get into the field, and very competitive. Just getting into the program was hard enough, but Brynn had kicked some serious butt to make it into the runner up spot. Icicles started gnawing their way through my stomach—my best friend was going to be moving halfway across the state. I couldn’t help but be happy for her, but I was feeling more alone by the second.
“That’s great news. I can’t believe she bailed on the scholarship.”
“Hey, why don’t you come over when you get off work and I’ll tell you everything?”
I thought about going home to spend the night wallowing in self-pity instead, but it didn’t sound particularly appealing. “Okay.”
“See you then!”
When I locked up that night I almost backed out—this was a big day for her and she didn’t need me spoiling it with my problems. Of course if I didn’t go over she’d wonder why and pester me with a nonstop barrage of texts until I eventually gave in and ended up telling her everything anyway. I figured my best course was to suck it up and keep my mouth shut. My personal issues would keep for another day or two.
Brynn lived with her dad in an enormous, two story farmhouse that was almost a hundred years old and had enough character for a dozen homes. I had been spending nights there since we first became friends back in middle school, and I loved that place more than anywhere else in the world. The stairs creaked and the pipes groaned and some of the windows had a tendency to stick during the summer, but you simply couldn’t beat the place for a wicked game of hide-and-go-seek.
With five huge upstairs bedrooms and the living areas downstairs all sized to match it was far too large for just the two of them. Brynn had been an only child when her mom had died in a car accident, though, and for some reason her dad never remarried. Thinking about it always made me a little sad because she had told me once that when her dad bought the house for her mom they had intended to fill it with kids. I never could understand why he held onto the place rather than moving them into something where they didn’t rattle around like the last two M&Ms in the candy jar. Maybe it was the memories, or maybe it was just inertia. I had never had the courage to ask.
By the time I met Brynn her mom was already gone and her dad, Dr. Jonathan Sanders, just seemed like a normal single father. A surgeon at the small
Have you ever had one of those days where life just decides to screw with you? Well, I was having one of those days. It had started before I left the house for work that morning, and I desperately needed to talk things over with Brynn, my best friend. Of course it was Saturday so a steady stream of customers kept me hopping until lunchtime and I had no chance to text or call. When I had applied for a job at the used video game store two years ago I didn’t know the difference between an Xbox and a pop tart, but the owner had hired me anyway on a hunch. I was young, female, sort of pretty in a wholesome, girl next door kind of way, and most of his clientele consisted of geeky, awkward guys in their teens and twenties. Sales had spiked almost twenty percent in the first month after I started working there and my boss immediately gave me a big enough raise to make sure I wasn’t going to find a better job anywhere else in town. I wondered if he’d be able to give me another one so I could afford to stick around.
As soon as I could break away for lunch I pulled out my cell phone and called Brynn. I had no idea I was about to get nailed with the second half of the double-whammy life had in store for me.
“Molly!” she squealed, “I was just about to call you. You won’t believe it!”
“What?”
“I got the scholarship! The other girl dropped out.”
She had been the runner up for a veterinary scholarship at Texas A&M University, one of the ones they set up to encourage more women to get into the field, and very competitive. Just getting into the program was hard enough, but Brynn had kicked some serious butt to make it into the runner up spot. Icicles started gnawing their way through my stomach—my best friend was going to be moving halfway across the state. I couldn’t help but be happy for her, but I was feeling more alone by the second.
“That’s great news. I can’t believe she bailed on the scholarship.”
“Hey, why don’t you come over when you get off work and I’ll tell you everything?”
I thought about going home to spend the night wallowing in self-pity instead, but it didn’t sound particularly appealing. “Okay.”
“See you then!”
When I locked up that night I almost backed out—this was a big day for her and she didn’t need me spoiling it with my problems. Of course if I didn’t go over she’d wonder why and pester me with a nonstop barrage of texts until I eventually gave in and ended up telling her everything anyway. I figured my best course was to suck it up and keep my mouth shut. My personal issues would keep for another day or two.
Brynn lived with her dad in an enormous, two story farmhouse that was almost a hundred years old and had enough character for a dozen homes. I had been spending nights there since we first became friends back in middle school, and I loved that place more than anywhere else in the world. The stairs creaked and the pipes groaned and some of the windows had a tendency to stick during the summer, but you simply couldn’t beat the place for a wicked game of hide-and-go-seek.
With five huge upstairs bedrooms and the living areas downstairs all sized to match it was far too large for just the two of them. Brynn had been an only child when her mom had died in a car accident, though, and for some reason her dad never remarried. Thinking about it always made me a little sad because she had told me once that when her dad bought the house for her mom they had intended to fill it with kids. I never could understand why he held onto the place rather than moving them into something where they didn’t rattle around like the last two M&Ms in the candy jar. Maybe it was the memories, or maybe it was just inertia. I had never had the courage to ask.
By the time I met Brynn her mom was already gone and her dad, Dr. Jonathan Sanders, just seemed like a normal single father. A surgeon at the small
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