It’s one of the few places on this earth that doesn’t freak me out.
And I need it now more than I’ve felt I’ve needed it in years.
A voice over the speakers tells me I have fifteen minutes to finish my shopping before the store closes. I look down at the basket I’m tugging along. Empty. Coming to a stop at the fruit and veg aisle, I scan the shelves for the mangos, frowning when I see none. Who sells out of mangos? I stop a store worker, a young man with red spikey hair. “Do you have any mangos?” I ask, pointing at the empty space between the pineapples and kiwis.
“No more fresh fruit until tomorrow.” He doesn’t even stop, no doubt keen to finish his shift and go meet his friends.
I pout at his back, claiming my basket and tugging it along to the dairy aisle, dropping some milk into it. Because . . . everyone needs milk.
And chocolate. Everyone needs chocolate. I walk up and down every aisle to get to the candy aisle and stand for a few moments scanning the selection. My skin tingles. I look left. No one. I look right. No one.
My cell rings, but I ignore it, drained of the energy needed to reassure Zinnea, Lawrence, or Dexter that I’m okay. Instead, I text her, knowing she’ll be waiting to go on stage, and she won’t settle until she hears from me.
I’m okay.
I snatch a Hershey Bar, the biggest, and drop it in my basket.
Next, wine.
I trudge on, looking over my shoulder, rolling them as I do. No one.
Another announcement comes over the speakers, telling me I have ten minutes to find my wine and pay. It doesn’t encourage me to rush, my feet heavy as I flip-flop along. My cell rings again. I ignore it. Again.
“I think someone wants to speak to you,” somebody says, and I glance up at a man beside me, who’s grabbing a bottle of expensive-looking Merlot.
“Is it good?” I ask, motioning to his hand.
He smiles. “The best.”
I nod and reach for a bottle, my cell ringing off and immediately sounding again. I sigh, accepting that she won’t settle until she actually speaks to me, my thumb going to answer. I falter placing my wine in my basket, the number on my screen making my heart boom. And I stare. For an age, I just stare at it, delving deep to find the will I need to answer, at the same time wondering what on earth he could want.
Because I can’t figure out if you dislike me. Or want to fuck me.
“I can’t figure that out either, James,” I breathe, and let my thumb fall to the green icon that accepts the call. “Hello.” I don’t say my greeting as a question. He knows I know who it is.
“Beau.”
“James.”
Silence falls, and it’s only broken when the speakers announce it’s my last chance to grab the daily specials. I look at the ceiling, to all the bright, harsh light pouring down on me. It’s a stark contrast to the darkness I’m feeling from down the line.
“Where are you?” he asks, his question flat and without any curiosity. Almost a demand.
“Walmart,” I answer quietly and hesitantly.
“At this time?”
“It’s less . . . chaotic.” Less noisy. Less busy. And it’s light. So very light. “And the risk of having the back of your legs rammed by a cart is reduced.”
Rammed.
I blink my vision clear.
“You don’t like busy?”
“Hate it,” I answer, with no thought for what that might tell him about me. I start to wander toward the checkout, wondering, again, why he’s calling me. Wondering why I’m indulging him.
“Me too,” he whispers, almost to himself.
Except in your bedroom. That was far busier than it should have been. “Why are you calling me, James?” I ask, starting to unload my few things onto the conveyor belt.
“I don’t know,” he answers candidly, and my hand falters on its way back to the basket.
“Lonely?” I ask.
“Always.”
Air catches in my throat, and it’s beyond me why. Loneliness. It’s a strange thing. You can be surrounded by many people, people who love you and shower you with attention, but still feel incredibly isolated. I’m testament to that. But James? I know nothing about him, apart from his bedroom habits, of course. And that he’s possibly made of glass. “Me too,” I say quietly, wanting him to hear me.
More silence stretches as I move to the other end of the checkout and the lady behind the counter starts scanning my things. “So you called me because you’re lonely?” I ask.
“No, I called you because I need you to paint my office.”
I frown as I tap my card on the reader to pay. “I’m too expensive, apparently.”
“And, apparently, I’m terrible at painting.”
“You tried to do it yourself?” I can’t imagine James painting. I can’t imagine James doing anything other than brooding. And fucking. And there’s part of my problem. I’ve imagined him fucking more than is healthy. I can’t get the image of his strained, incredible body, or his intense face, out of my damn head.
I collect my bag and make my way toward the exit as a five-minute warning to the rest of the shoppers sounds.
“You have five minutes, Beau,” he whispers.
“Five minutes for what?”
“To decide whether you can bring yourself to be in my company again.” He hangs up, and I stare down at my cell, stunned. Five minutes.
I glance around me, as if the empty store can help me. No one can . . . help me. I walk out a little dazed and perch on a wall under a streetlight. The next five minutes feel like the longest of my life, my head overcrowded, leaving no space for me to actually decide whether I will take his offer, and only room to relive the last time I was in his apartment. And I admit to myself for the first time, I wanted to be that woman. Not so much because I want James to fuck me with that kind of ferocity, but because I want to feel as lost as she looked.
Light. Free. Immune to thinking, immune to everything, except for the pleasure.
I startle when my cell rings in my hand, and I stare at the screen for a few seconds before answering. I don’t greet him. He doesn’t greet me. We just breathe down the line at each other.
Lonely?
Always.
“See you Monday,” he finally says.
Then he hangs up again.
The house is quiet when I get home, and I flick on every light as I make my way to the kitchen at the very back of the house. I unpack my few items. Wash my hands as I stare out into the dark yard. Go up to my room, flicking on every light switch I pass. I drop my bag on my bed and wander to Mom’s special bottle of Krug on my nightstand, brushing across the top of the box delicately. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Mom,” I whisper, stripping out of my clothes and leaving them in a pile by my bed.
I go to my bathroom and turn on the shower before putting myself in front of the mirror, forcing my eyes to look at myself. At my arm. At my shoulder.
The scars look especially red today. Angry.
Ugly.
Alive.
I draw a line down the length of my arm to my wrist, my lips twisting, the pain raw. Dead flesh. Dead skin.
A dead soul.
Condensation starts to creep up the mirror, fogging it, until I disappear.
Invisible.