Part 2
“I will bring this back to you,” he whispered, pressing the paper into her hand. “I swear it.”
Christine gently closed her fingers over the paper, ignoring the exasperated sigh from Marcus. “Drive safe, Louis.”
Two hours later, the afternoon rush had finally thinned out. Christine was wiping down the coffee station when Gary, the store manager, leaned out of the back office.
“Chris. Step in here for a minute, please.”
The office was a cramped, windowless room that smelled heavily of cardboard boxes and old printer ink. Gary sat behind a metal desk piled high with inventory clipboards. He didn’t look angry, just intensely tired and uncomfortable. He gestured for her to close the door.
“Marcus tells me you hit the manual override on pump four today without a card swipe,” Gary said, keeping his eyes focused on his computer screen. “And then you put your own money into the till to cover the customer.”
“He was an older gentleman,” Christine said, her pulse giving a sudden, sharp thud. “He got confused and forgot his wallet. The drawer is perfectly balanced, Gary. I paid for his gas.”
Gary sighed, finally looking up and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Chris, you know the policy. We are a strict prepay station. You cannot manually override the pumps, and you absolutely cannot mix personal cash with the register to cover a transaction. Corporate looks at the camera feed, they call that till-tapping or sweethearting. It’s a massive liability.”
“I just didn’t want him to be humiliated,” she said, keeping her voice level despite the rising panic in her chest.
“I get it. Really, I do,” Gary said. His tone was not cruel, just rigidly bureaucratic. “But if regional audits the tapes and sees that, I’m the one who gets fired for failing to enforce cash-handling rules. I can’t have employees ignoring protocol because they feel bad for somebody. I have to let you go.”
The words hung in the stuffy air. Christine didn’t argue. She knew how retail math worked; humanity didn’t factor into the margins. She silently untied her company apron, draped it over the back of a plastic chair, and walked out the back door.
The evening air had cooled, but inside her chest, the anxiety was suffocating. She sat behind the steering wheel of her ten-year-old sedan, the keys heavy in her hand. She had done the right thing, she was sure of it. But doing the right thing wasn’t going to pay the rent.