Jonas watched her face for a moment, as if he was thinking, and then he smiled. Then he turned away so she couldn’t see his face and continued on. The fact that he had actually smiled made her smile, too, and she almost forgot about the Walls for a few moments.
16
JONAS
The next day was a workday for Brennan.
Which, for Jonas, meant no address in his messages. No walking. At least, not with her. He supposed he could do it by himself, if he really wanted to. Did he want to?
Thinking about the implications of walking on his own instead of someone else making him do it was hard, so he instead spent the first half of the day in his room reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets until he finished it and there wasn’t anything left to read.
He sighed and set the book next to him on the bed, looking at the ceiling (suddenly conscious of how often he found himself looking at the same ceiling—at its constellations of stars and plaster). Before, he’d have been fine with this. This would have been a good day.
Now, however, it was like his eyes had been opened to the possibility of more—of walking places, of going places, of doing things outside of his own house.
He had this thought, which he liked to push down and hide—it was basically that he wondered about the implications of reaching normal again. Like, now that things were different (and they were so vastly different than before), normal might not be so good, because it would never be the normal of before.
New normal < Old normal.
Plus, he had this choking feeling that reaching normal just gave bad things another excuse to happen. Like finding normal and being content with his life was just asking for something to come along and mess it all up. But at the same time, he ached for it (for normal). Normal, normal, normal.
Dumb Brennan, making him discontent with his life.
He didn’t need friends.
He needed a new start, off at college.
So why was his mind saying Forget fresh starts and telling him to go to the dumb grocery store?
First, he convinced Rhys to give him a ride. Then he texted his mom: You know how you were going to get stamps after work today? I can stop by the store and get them for you.
She texted him back in surprise. Really? You’d do that?
Sure, he said.
She sent back a heart emoji and a smiley face. There’s money in the top left drawer of your dad’s desk.
A pause, and then—Be careful, okay? I love you, Jonas. She didn’t say anything else, and part of Jonas knew that she didn’t want to say anything that might discourage him from going out.
He rolled his eyes a little but smiled all the same. She hadn’t called him Bird. Before The Accident, she hadn’t called him by his childhood nickname in a while. He had been growing up. After The Accident, Jonas and Bird were synonymous. Maybe she was letting him grow up again. Maybe that was good. I love you, too, Mom.
brennan
Coming back to work after a weekend, or after being off for a few days, was always the worst. Brennan felt especially sick on those days.
Right now, she was having a hard time forcing words out past the sick feeling in the back of her throat. Her heartbeat pulsed, thudding against her ribs and in her ears. It was almost her break. Just twenty more minutes she had to get through, and then she could escape out to her car for fifteen minutes, away from people. She could calm herself, put herself back together somewhat for the rest of her shift. Just twenty more minutes.
So she smiled as she greeted customers and forced her voice to sound seminormal when she asked how she could help them.
She got a brief moment’s respite when she went into the back cooler to get a new block of Muenster cheese. She shut the door until it was open just a crack, and then she closed her eyes, breathing in the frigid air. The sound of the cooling system filled her ears until it was all she could hear. Cold air always helped her, like it brought her back to reality. She could have stood there in the cooler for hours, if they’d let her.
Well, maybe not hours (it was pretty cold), but a long time. Long minutes, maybe.
Brennan steeled herself once more and exited the cooler carrying the cheese, her smile pasted back on her face once more. Brennan, packaged pretty to hide the mess inside.
“Brennan!”
She jumped at the sound of her name, hoping it wasn’t some person from high school, come to pretend they’d been the best of friends even though said person had hardly bothered to get to know her. At least they couldn’t awkward hug over the deli counter.
It was Jonas, standing at the counter, eyeing some salad or another in the deli case with a look of displeasure. She was surprised to see him, especially without his crutches. He had the walker, though, and she noticed he looked vaguely uncomfortable with the idea of being out in the middle of the store, alone, with it.
“Jonas?” she breathed, her anxiety momentarily vanishing in her surprise at seeing him here, at the deli, and without crutches. At that moment, she thought she might have been okay with awkward hugging him.
“You sound surprised,” he said drily. “Who’d you expect? The queen of England? Harry Potter in the flesh?”
Brennan rolled her eyes. “I just didn’t expect you to come here.” To come see her. Had he come to see her? “You know.” She cleared her throat. “Without the crutches.”
Jonas frowned at some kid who was staring at the walker curiously. Brennan almost wanted to tell him to be nicer but refrained. Jonas was just being Jonas. At least his old-man grouchiness matched his old-man walker. “Well,” he said, turning back to her. “Yeah.” She wondered if she imagined the uneasiness in the way he glanced around at the surrounding customers. It reminded her of, well, her—like he was suspicious that everyone around was looking at him.
Brennan was about to ask if he was all right when she noticed the line of customers that was forming behind him.
Her smile faded, the nerves coming back suddenly, like they’d only retreated momentarily and were now waging a full attack once more. “I’m still on duty,” she said. “I’ve got to help customers. I have a break in ten minutes though—”
“And you’ve got a customer now,” Jonas interrupted. “One pound of honey-roasted turkey, sliced on a two—that’s what you deli folks say, right?” She nodded, trying her best not to stare at Jonas. He continued. “One pound of Black Forest ham, sliced the same, and a half pound each of provolone and Muenster. Sandwich slices.”
“Couldn’t you have made it more complicated?”
“Hey, now,” said Jonas, pretending to admonish her. “It’s only four things. It’s what my mom always gets.”
“Sure enough,” she said as she started to slice the turkey.
By the time she finished with his order, it was time for her break.
“Now keep it in the deli case until I’m done shopping,” Jonas ordered, feigning importance. “And by shopping, clearly I mean bothering you on your break.”
Brennan half laughed and placed the packaged meats and cheeses in the deli case, out of sight, where they stored things for customers who had ordered and then gone off to shop while their order was being prepared.
She came around the counter then, and they walked toward the front door of the store. She still needed to get out of the building.