Sabrina nearly punched the kitchen door open as she entered. The hot, salty air, thick with fryer oil and cigarette smoke and profanity, rolled over her red cheeks. She didn’t stop to talk, not even when Dawn offered her a puff or when Alex lifted his plate of ‘accidental’ chicken parm her way.

She reached the break area and halted for a moment, processing. The snide look that the customer gave her as he passed his note replayed in her head like the knockout blow in an MMA fight. It stung the same and left her head ringing. Bastard.

She tore the paper at the corner she opened it so hastily. Once it was, she sincerely couldn’t believe what she was reading.

It went beyond a professional indictment, a formal complaint and instead attacked her personally. The words on the page, which would have held no power individually and little power spoken aloud or in passing, were each another burning slap on her cheeks read like this. Sabrina took them all, intellectual slurs and all. Before she could stop it, she realized she was crying. And then that made her mad.

It took her time and a cigarette to calm back down but when she did, she went to work. Not waiting tables, but preparing. She went to the office and printed a surprisingly clear frame of the villain in question, in motion but clear in the face as he stood to don his coat.

She left the image and the note on the kitchen bulletin board; complete with the words “do not admit, if you do, show him a gooood time.”

That felt good. It was a start at least.