The rest of Serenity's time in the hotel ballroom felt like an out-of-body experience. She somehow managed to finish rinsing out the coffee carafes, folding up the tablecloths, and packing up the leftover sugar and creamer packets, but later on, she would have no memory of the actual process of doing any of it.
All that stuck with her was the memory of the goofy, tacky CoffeeWorks advertising banner flapping in front of an empty table as she walked away, looking just as cheap and out-of-place in the glamorous ballroom as she must have looked herself.
Serenity had long since taken off her high heels, and as she got her purse out from under the table and pulled her hair into a messy bun for the drive home, she decided not to bother putting them back on. She knew her feet were going to get cold and dirty from the asphalt in the parking deck, but she couldn't bring herself to care.
Strapping herself back into the elegant heels would have reminded her too much of the glamorous feeling she had when she put them on that afternoon in her bedroom, back during those insane few hours when she thought she might impress someone at a corporate gala in her sensible black pencil skirt and thrifted v-neck.
Thinking back on it made her feel so embarrassed the feeling verged on rage - and chilly feet seemed like an appropriate punishment.
With her purse - heavy with tips - slung over one shoulder and her stilettos dangling from the other, she made the long, cold walk out to her car.
Serenity was behind the steering wheel, plugging her own address into her GPS, by the time she realized she had eight missed text messages.
Scrolling past the notifications from her brother - she was almost certain they would just be him asking where she was, even though she could distinctly remember telling him about the event at least twice - she was startled to see three messages from Kaiba.
The first one was sent an hour previously - by her estimation, about ten minutes after their awkward encounter:
I didn't go with that Jaeger-LeCoultre woman because I wanted to.
Serenity made a face. What on earth did that mean?
Maybe the next two messages would make it make more sense. The second one was sent about ten minutes after the first:
I had no idea that you would be in attendance.
Well, yeah, sounds about right. How could he have?
The final message had only been sent eleven minutes ago - long after the first two.
Serenity read it, then paused.
Then read it again.
She could feel her hands start to tremble.
Her vision starting to blur with tears, she looked down at it one final time to make sure that she hadn't read something wrong:
You just didn't seem like a gala type of person.
The words seemed so innocuous at first, but they carried with them a horrible, sinking weight:
You don't belong.
You're not good enough.
He hadn't come right out and said the last part, but he hadn't needed to. It wasn't like he was telling her anything she didn't already know.
From the moment she had seen Regina Jaeger-Whatsit clinging to Kaiba's arm with her perfectly-manicured little nails, flashing her million dollar smile, Serenity had been aware that she was out of her depth.
Galas existed for millionaires in tuxedoes. For women who float around in green runway-cut princess dresses, rambling about their mothers' stylists and the designers they meet in Venice. They were a magical world of complimentary designer gifts, where yachts and country club memberships get raffled off for made-up charities.
So what had she been thinking, putting on a special shade of lipstick and department store heels and imagining for a moment that she - a girl who was raised by a single mom and grew up to work in a coffee shop for tips - could compete?
Serenity put her head down on the steering wheel and sobbed.
She may have already known it, but it didn't make hearing it from him any less devastating.
By the time Serenity pulled into her own driveway - having cried most of the way, pausing to dry her eyes at stoplights - her grief was finally starting to ebb away.
Or, more likely, it had just changed its form and turned into the rage that was slowly overtaking her. White-hot and insistent, it crept up from the pit of her stomach into her throat.
After all, she hadn't been the one who tried to insert herself into his life - it had been the other way around.
If she was so grossly insufficient, why did he bother asking her to get coffee with him or sending her text messages?
What was she? Some kind of novelty or source of amusement? A human fidget spinner that he could waste a little time with and then get bored of and toss away? He wouldn't be able to get away with doing that to someone with a hyphenated name who mattered in the world, so why not the dumb, naive coffee girl? That could be fun for a laugh.
If that's all it had ever been. Then fuck him.
Fuck Seto Kaiba, fuck his gala, fuck his medium black coffee with no room for cream.
For real this time. No more second chances or benefit-of-the-doubt bullshit.
After Serenity turned off the car and took the key out of the ignition, she picked up her phone, opened her address book, and blocked Kaiba's number. Though he wouldn't know immediately - and possibly wouldn't ever know - it still felt satisfyingly aggressive, like slamming an old corded phone back into a receiver.
Fuck Seto Kaiba.
There had been a fourth text message - possibly sent while she was driving - but it disappeared along with the rest of the chat, and she couldn't have cared any less if she tried.
There was nothing more to say.
Though deleting the number had felt sort of empowering, Serenity was still feeling a little shaky and fragile. For that reason, she was relieved to see that her brother's truck wasn't in the driveway. He had no doubt gotten off work hours before, so that must mean he was at the game shop.
That's probably what he had been texting her to tell her.
It took a moment for Serenity to shuffle through the keys on her keyring in the darkness of the front porch. However, when she finally managed to put the right key in the knob and turn it, she was surprised to find that it was already unlocked.
Serenity felt a sudden burst of anxiousness, but she shook her head and walked into the house anyway.
Joey had probably come home to change clothes, then forgotten to lock it on his way out the door. It wouldn't be the first time.
Stepping into the living room, she noticed immediately that a light was on in the bathroom down the hallway - and as cheap as her brother was, he tended to be reliable when it came to turning off all the lights before he left.
"Joey?" she called. "Hey Joey, are you here?"
