Disclaimer: I own nothing (there aren't even any OCs for me to claim)
Author's Note: I've been meaning to write something like this for a while; I just couldn't find the right way to do it until tonight when I realised Fran would be the perfect character for this plot.
Before anyone asks, this oneshot isn't related to anything I've written in the past.
Enjoy!
-Nothing-Hurts-More-
Her friends weren't talking to her. Actually, it wasn't that they weren't talking to her. They just weren't really connecting with her like they did to each other.
She knew she was the outsider. She was unlike the trio. She knew they had a relationship before they met her. And that was okay. She accepted that. It didn't bother her.
What bothered her was that she never felt accepted by the three. They would always disappear randomly in the middle of their shifts and leave her to do all the work by herself. Or, they would all go upstairs with RJ, who had made it clear that she wasn't allowed to go up there. It wasn't like they were hiding some big secret… was it? What could possibly be up those stairs that was so… secretive? Why couldn't she know about it? Why was she the only person who didn't know about it?
She valued their friendship, because even though she felt like she was being left behind constantly, she still considered it to be a friendship. She knew they cared for her, and if they knew how they were making her feel, they would do anything to make her feel better. She understood that she was important to them. When she had quit, they had said everything they could to get her to come back. They wouldn't have done that if they didn't like her, or if they didn't care for her. Or… maybe…
It could have been a ploy. They did run off and leave her on her own all the time. If she didn't work there, who would keep the place running? They always promised to make it up to her. Empty promises really. She knew they would never follow through on them. At first she believed. The first few times they rushed off and promised to make it up to her, she truly thought they would. She imagined they would cover the last hour of her shift so she could relax, or they would clean up the restaurant after hours, anything, really.
She loved her friends. They were the only ones she had ever had. Her first friends. But she couldn't live like this forever. She knew she should talk with them and, one day, she had summoned up the courage to do so. She had been ready to deal with this tough situation and talk it all out. She was ready to lay her heart on the line. She had told left them a message saying she had to talk with them. But she chickened out before she got to work the next day. Work was the only time she ever saw them, if they were actually working. She told them she had figured it out on her own and no longer needed their help and she had. She had decided to settle.
They would probably never know how she truly felt when they rushed off and told her: "We owe you, Fran" or even: "You're the best". Those weren't promises or compliments anymore. They probably did mean them, but actions spoke louder than words and they weren't doing anything. They were all talk/
They would always be her friends. They hadn't exactly done anything to her. They couldn't correct a behaviour they didn't know was harmful. But she wanted to give up. She wanted to call it quits and just walk away from whatever this relationship was.
But she couldn't do that to herself. She was stronger than this. If her friends truly were her friends, they would come around, sooner or later. They would hear her silent cries and catch on to any subtle messages that she was leaving. She hoped this was just a phase.
She wanted to give up, but she wasn't. She was going to stick it through. After all, it couldn't get worse. Nothing hurt more than being ignored by a friend, except maybe being ignored by three.