i work in a coffee shop so now they work in a coffee shop 🧍‍♀️ JSWKKSKSA I LOVE HOW THE START OF EVERY CHAPTER IS JUST ME GOING "this happened to me so now i'm projecting it" HAHAHA

It's funny to think, Ahsoka now realizes, that none of this would have ever happened if she and her mother hadn't had that fight last year. It'd been over something petty—something that she can't even remember now—but it's nice to think that good things can sometimes come out of bad situations. It's nice to have hope.

She turns her phone over on her desk, smiling to herself at the most recent text from Anakin.

I'll be home tonight. I can't wait to see you!

Anakin—the person she only knows because of that stupid little coffee shop. It's amazing how a total stranger can turn into family.

Whatever her teacher is saying must be pretty boring because she's zoning out again, remembering when they'd first begun to get to know one another.

"Hey, do you need a ride home?" 

She looks up from her phone, which died about three minutes ago, but she's continued staring at anyway so that nobody would give her the exact type of attention that her coworker is now giving her.

She wants to say no. The word is on the tip of her tongue. She hardly knows this guy—this grown man. 'Anakin' is just a name on the schedule that her boss sends out every Saturday.

She hasn't heard anything bad about him from her coworkers (and they gossip a lot), and he's a good worker—always seems to do everything right.

"Um," she looks down at her black screen again, remembering her mom screaming at her on the whole ride here about something or other, "maybe?" 

When her mom gets mad, she gets pissed. She probably isn't going to come get her any time soon. She was supposed to be here a half hour ago.

"It's no trouble, I promise," he says with a smile, and not even a creepy one like some of the older men who come in give her.

She shrugs her shoulders. What the hell?

"I would really appreciate that, thank you," she answers.

"Awesome, where do you live?" he asks as she follows him to his car. She's a bit stunned and he quickly apologizes. "That sounded a lot less creepy in my head."

"You're fine," she chuckles, climbing into the passenger seat.

She's violently pulled from her memories when her teacher asks her what's so funny. That's when she realizes she's just laughed out loud at the thought of a time when Anakin hadn't been over at her place every Friday night for dinner.

"Nothing, sorry," she mutters, sitting up straighter, cheeks burning. Her teacher moves on.

She falls back into her thoughts.

"Thanks for the other day," she says when the silence as they wait for the espresso machine to finish dispensing drags on long enough to become awkward.

"Don't mention it," he replies. "Did you work things out with your mom?" he asks, recalling the conversation they'd had on the ride to her apartment.

"Yep," she answers, popping the 'p.'

"Well, if you ever have any issues with her again, I'm more than happy to drive you home. I went through similar stuff with my stepdad before I got my license. Obi-Wan used to drive me home when he wouldn't come for me," he explains, pouring the espresso into the latte she's currently working on, instead of his own.

"Oh, thank you," she says, slightly surprised. Usually people grab it for themselves as soon as it's done.

"No problem," he says while she stirs the drink.

"Are... you and your stepdad on good terms now?" she questions, popping the lid on the cup. 

He cracks a smile at that.

"Things are a bit better. What about you and your dad?"

"Oh, he left years ago," she chuckles.

"Ah, well, my mom's dead so I kind of know what that's like," he says back, nonchalantly.

There's a beat of silence where they both look one another dead in the eye before bursting into uncontrollable laughter.

It had been then that she'd known she could tell him anything.

She remembers, a few weeks later, telling her mom that she didn't need to pick her up anymore—her friend could drive her home everyday.

She remembers the first day that just the two of them were scheduled to run the shop for the afternoon. That had been the first time that Padmé came in. Being the only person there to see Anakin meet the woman who would become his fiancé now baffles her.

She remembers when he'd told her that he was quitting because he had to go to college. She'd wanted to quit too, suddenly realizing that her best friend was the only reason she stayed at the stupid place, but he'd told her that he needed someone to come back for.

She has a shift right after school, and Anakin is coming in right before she closes. Her brother is coming home.

the best thing i've learned from working in a coffee shop is that i like tea better