Adrienne was at the Wine and Spirits shop buying a bottle of Veuve Clicquot that she planned on splitting with her parents that night.
"Celebrating or drowning your sorrows?" The cashier asked.
She gave him a look. Sometimes she really detested that her parents chose to retire in such a conservative town. She rolled her eyes and swiped her card.
"We're celebrating," she said, spraying spit against her mask. She snatched the receipt out of his hand.
As she settled back into her car, she saw a navy Jeep drive past in the rearview mirror. She watched it bend around the parking lot and pull into a spot. There was the NC Lax sticker on the back. A woman with dark brown hair and a royal blue puff jacket got out of the passenger side. She pulled at the backseat door but it was locked. She knocked on the window and pointed to the handle. Then she tried it again and the door opened.
Paul's mother, Adrienne thought. The woman was reaching into the backseat, where Adrienne had straddled her son—twice—for her purse.
Paul appeared from the other side of the car with his mask under his chin. Adrienne ducked down in her seat and waited for a few seconds.
She had never responded to Paul's apology text. After she left him on the side of the road, she cursed herself for indulging in a teenager's stupid problems. He wasn't her responsibility.
She knew better. ...Right?
Yes. She knew better than to hook up with a teenager. The sex was okay. She just enjoyed the attention because being single in 2020 was miserable. But she could find attention from people her own age.
When she looked back up, Paul and his mother were walking towards the grocery store adjacent to the Wine and Spirits shop. She watched as the mother wiped the shopping cart with disinfectant and the two of them disappeared into the store.
The champagne was sweating. Adrienne turned on the car and drove home.
----
This chapter is a short one. Should Adrienne have went to talk to Paul?
*Photo by https://unsplash.com/@element5digital
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EMOTIONAL DISTANCE
Teen Fiction*a pandemic romance with a 19 year old college student and 29 year old unemployed woman It's 2020. Paul should be off to college, Adrienne should be engaged in London but instead they're both stuck in Connecticut and cross paths thanks to a harmless...
