Zoey pushed the buttons on the screen, typing in her pin for the thousandth time, signing out for the day. She was in a hurry. By her time, she was 15 minutes late already. There wasn't a moment to change out of the apron and green shirt that Joann's had provided.

[color=39b54a]"Shit"[/color] she muttered under her breath as she pulled her messenger bag out of her locker. It had patches on it from random youtube personalities she had been following for the past years. Her favorite was BigTimeTrouble, a vlogger from Long Beach, she had even met him once on the pier. 

She took steps to leave the break-room, but was stopped by a familiar voice "Zoey, I need to talk to you for a second." She recognized the voice as Dan, her supervisor, mid 20's, greased up hair, and a real ass hole.

"I noticed you were distracted today, you can't keep coming into work with your head in the clouds. I really don't want to lay you off, I know you and your family needs this."

Zoey bit her tongue again and looked at her feet. [color=39b54a]"I'm sorry Dan, I'll try to do better next time."[/color]

"There's no try about it Zoey," he shot back "Listen, some of us from work are going out tonight. You should come, make some friends, learn to enjoy it here."

[color=39b54a]"Sorry, I have plans,"[/color] she said motioning her body toward the door and walking out. She could hear Dan chuckle behind her saying "You're loss I guess." 

Damn now she was 20 minutes late.

The food court wasn't a long walk from Joann's, and it wasn't long before she saw her friends huddled around the usual table. Ally seemed to be in the middle of talking to the group "I wish we could have super powers or something.  Then we could stop crime much better than these cops."

[color=39b54a]"Hey guys, sorry I'm late."[/color] she said to the group as she took a seat. Nobody seemed to be too peeved, but it was clear that she had missed something fairly important. She looked at Ally [color=39b54a]"I think anyone could do better than the police honestly."[/color] But, they all knew how she felt about them. Even before her dad was killed, they had only caused her trouble. Her skin was just a shade too dark for them, maybe that thought wasn't fair, but it was her experience. For a family that didn't break any laws, they had run into more trouble than any of her white friends growing up.