The tips that weren't mine.

I worked as a waitress in a packed bar-restaurant in Manchester city centre, the kind of place with queues on the pavement every Friday night. Tips were pooled in a battered tin behind the till and split at closing. During the rush I learned how easy it was to lift a note or two without anyone noticing. Later it became whole handfuls before the count. The others complained that customers were stingy, that card payments were killing gratuities. I nodded and let them believe it. I watched their faces at the end of nights when the split was thin and unfair. I told myself I deserved it more than they did. It went on for months. I quit after a new girl cried over a near-empty envelope. I was never caught. The money vanished. The stain didn't.