I Defended a Cashier from an Entitled Customer – Days Later, Her Colleague Brought Me to Tears

“Most people don’t yell,” he answered. “They look at their phones and pretend they can’t hear.”

He paused, then added, “Jenna talked about you for days.”

Something in my chest cracked a little at that.

“She told us,” he said gently.

“She said, ‘There’s this woman who comes in late a lot. She shut that guy down for me.’”

I pictured Jenna in the break room, telling that story, maybe laughing about how my hands had been shaking as much as hers.

I’d always assumed I was just another forgettable customer to them.

Turns out I was a story they told too.

The tears hit before I could stop them.

I turned my head slightly, wiped at my face with the sleeve of my hoodie, and laughed at myself for crying in front of the cigarettes and lottery tickets.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “It’s been a long week.”

Luis smiled, not unkindly.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“You’re allowed to be tired.”

That sentence almost broke me more than anything else.

Tired had become my default setting years ago, the constant hum beneath everything.

I don’t think I even recognized it as something I was “allowed” to be.

To me it was just…life.

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