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George’s hands had gone completely numb by the time he made his way to the ice cream. After pulling forward box after box of frozen foods, all he wished for was simply a pair of gloves. That was the first thing he’d realised after receiving minimal explanation from Pete, who was supposed to be helping him through this.
As it was only his second day, he was sure the job he’d done on the freezer so far looked awful, or pretty bad at best. But it really wasn’t his fault. Nobody had stepped in and properly explained it. And now, his fingers were so cold that it didn’t matter what he knew he had to do. He was doing the least amount he could do and get away with, pulling forward pints of ice cream from the very back of the freezer, where cold air assaulted him even worse.
Not even to mention the fact that every time he paid his thoughts any mind at all, his heart pinged in his chest and he felt an uncomfortable tingle in his hands.
Eventually, though, as he grabbed onto the lid of a chocolate pint and dragged it towards the front, his foot on the metal bar at the bottom slipped and in a second, five pints were on the ground, and his left hand was bleeding.
His insecurities that had been biting at him since four, telling him he was no good and that he was wasting his time here, had finally eaten him up completely. He’d just ruined five pints of perfectly good ice cream all because of his clumsiness and laziness. And was he even supposed to be standing on that bar?
Realities swam around his head. He was going to get yelled at for what he’d done. How was he supposed to tell his proud mother that he wanted to quit the job he’d spent a month interviewing for? Or would he be fired before then? He hadn’t even had his employee number, and he was already going to be sacked.
Looking down at his hand at the cut near his thumb, tears started to well up in his eyes, and he could no longer hold them back. He looked down at the floor and allowed his scruffy hair to cover the redness of his face as he finally released his pent up emotion.
And as he turned around to see if anybody had even seen him, the glass door of the freezer clicked out of its locked position and slammed into his head. He sobbed.
“Oh, gosh!” called out a voice from behind him, but he didn’t have the heart nor the energy to turn around and see who it was. “Hey, you alright?”
George sighed. “Fine,” he mumbled, hoping it didn’t sound like he was currently crying about a little bit of spilled ice cream. “S-s-sorry.” He hadn’t meant to stutter so bad. He dropped his hands from his face to wrap his arms around his body and comfort himself.
“Oh! You’re bleeding, love! Hold on, let me go get you a bandage really quickly.” The voice disappeared with the hurried steps of trainers down the aisle, so George let his guard down, glancing back up at the shelves where so much ice cream had fallen off, and guilt filled him. But then, a boy came up to him and handed him a bandage. “There you go!”
George took it out of the package as fast as his still-frozen hands would let him and placed it over the bleeding cut.
“I also got you these.” The boy next to him gently shoved a pair of black gloves into his hands. Then, he touched George’s bare hands with his own and frowned. “I thought you looked a bit cold, so…”
But George was too mesmerised by the warmth of this other boy’s hands to put the gloves on. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem! I’m Richie, by the way. I don’t think we’ve met.” George looked over at Richie to see a genuine smile plastered across his face.
“I’m George.”
“It’s nice to meet you! Is it your first day?”
George shook his head. “My second.”
“And you’re doing this all alone? Who’s training you?” Richie’s sweet and understanding nature made shame rise in him for being so unreachable that Pete just left him alone here. “Oh! Is it Pete?”
“Y-yeah. How did you know?” He laughed nervously, hoping it would hide how upset he was, though Richie had already seen that he was crying not five minutes prior.
“He doesn’t do great with new people. Especially recently, he erm, he put in his notice, so…” Richie shrugged. “He’s not really putting in as much effort as he probably should be.”
“Oh.”
As George got more and more awkward at the influx of information, Richie started to notice. “Don’t worry about it, though. I’ll help you out.”
George glanced down at the chocolate ice cream. “I’m sorry about those.”
“Oh, no, no! They’re not dented or anything, so it’s alright if we put them back up. I’ll help you.” He bent down to pick them up, but when he stood back up, George hadn’t moved. In fact, he was crying even harder now.
“I suck at this!” he hissed. “God, I should have stayed at home. I’m gonna end up getting fired anyroad.”
After placing the ice cream back on the shelf, Ringo took a risk and touched his shoulder with his now cold hand. “You don’t suck at it, George. You’re just new. Nobody’s an expert when they’re new.”
“I guess you’re right…”
“You know what? It’s your second day, love. Let’s find something more fun to do. What all have you learnt how to do?” George panicked. He hadn’t properly learned anything, so he wasn’t sure how exactly he was supposed to respond. “How about the drink case?”
“N-no, I haven’t done that.”
Richie smiled. “I’ll teach you! You can take the gloves off if you want, we’ll save this cold-arse freezer for another time.”
Despite being completely surrounded by people he didn’t know, George couldn’t deny the amount of emotional comfort Richie gave to him in just a few minutes.
“Alright, so first we’ll go up to the front, where the drink case is and start to push everything back…” As he went on and explained it to George, the lump in his throat disappeared. Slowly, he was becoming less anxious about this strange new place he’d been launched into.
“Got all that?”
He nodded, finally understanding something. “Where do I go to get the drinks?” he asked, hoping to get the question out there before Richie left him to do it.
“They’re all in different places, so I can walk you through it. Follow me.” George started to follow. Maybe working here wouldn’t be so bad after all.