Oneshots

The Lure of Emotionally Unstable Ben and Jerry's Muggle Ice Cream

It's official. I'm utterly and shamelessly disgusting.

I look around myself, at the tide of cookie wrappers abandoned at my feet. Buy one get one free, they said. Limited edition Faero Bars, they said. Yeah. Aim for the vulnerable ones, why don't ya!

I should never have went to the supermarket last night. Not when my idiot boyfriend broke up with me an hour before.

"I'm sorry," he'd said, "It's just . . . we've totally drifted apart since college. I tried, I really did, but I . . . I met someone new. Someone who actually likes people!"

How. Dare. He.

I do like people - I just prefer animals and books, is all, and what's wrong with that? Okay, okay. So I'm a recluse. A hermit. There's no point in me denying it anymore. Probably the main disadvantage of teaching online Magical Writing Studies while occasionally helping my dad out at his store. Well, when he's not babbling on about polar bears and muggle fracking, that is.

I spend so much time online - sniggering at YouTube videos or teaching kids the pros and cons of magical writing - that I rarely ever get to meet "real life" people.

Anyway, do you know what? Fine. I don't need Jaq - I mean, what d-bag spells the name Jack with a Q anyway? - and I certainly don't need people.

"I don't understand, honey," my dad would say to me. "We raised you just like the rest of your brothers. And they like people. You sure you're okay in the head, sweetheart?"

"I do like people! Nice people," I'd argue but it never got me anywhere. It was the same when I was at Hogwarts and college.

I've been stuck around enough morons to last me a life time.

In other words: I'm an anti-social loser who'd rather spoon her dog and laptop in oppose to 'human beings' - be it magical or muggle born.

"Enough!" I grab my bag and car keys and storm out my flat. The staircase reeks of cinnamon and red apple wreath while I stomp towards the door.

Outside, it's so friggin' cold I feel as if my brother's just thrown cold water over me. Practically the ice-bucket challenge all over again. Only I've not got my brothers pining me down, while dad films it from the balcony, using his wand to swirl the water into constant ice.

I de-ice the car, grudgingly waiting twenty minutes while the stupid thing heats up, before driving to the market. Good thing about living in a small town? Everything's local. And, well, I'm lazy so why else.

The roads are jam-packed though. Rush-hour. Great. Way to dump me just before everyone finished work, asshole! (He knew me too well, obviously I'd run to the supermarket to drown my sorrows with cakes and those little gingerbread-slash-bubblegum-flavoured-cupcake-thingies!)

Another fifteen minutes stuck in traffic - might be a small town, but it's bang smack on the outskirts of the city, so traffic's always inevitable - then I pull my truck up and rush into the store. My loose bun flaps at the back of my neck while I pull my cardigan around myself. I shudder through the main entrance - the store's heating an instant welcome.

I pause at the baskets and shopping trollies. Should I . . . Nah! I'm only here for a couple of things, anyway. Cake and something that I can at least determine as being dinner.

I bypass the frozen foods isle and scurry towards the instant noodles. I pick up a handful of HotPot noodles - don't ask, they're quick and easy, okay dad! - and follow the smell of fresh baking at the other side of the market.

I don't pay much attention to the people around me. I never pay attention to the people around me.

Magical people don't exactly shop at I'm Hungry - especially not on Sundays, so I don't need to worry about bumping into students.

I hurry, as if my life depends on it, to the cakes and pastries screaming my name before bumping into anyone that'll recognise me. Eat me, they're begging. If you insist, I concur, while loading my other arm with two chocolate cream puffs. Basically a chocolate éclair but with cream, toffee sauce and slices of banana layering the pastry.

Dang, Christmas time sure is a bummer, right? Everything's so cheap and nasty, and I was just paid like two days - ohmygodIwannaspendallofot!

See. Super bad combination.

I hesitate next to the white chocolate Santa cookies. Typical. Right next to the Ben and Jerry's ice cream freezer, too, proudly displaying a buy-one-get-one-free declaration.

Shameless.

I scan three tubs of ice cream, followed by a mountain of cakes and HotPot noodles. That went well. I mean, way to go I'm Hungry! - aim for the pathetic ones, like me, and wheel them in with the lure of cheap ice cream and freshly baked pastries.

When I get home, I cocoon myself with my duvet on the sofa, while Piglet rests at my feet. The rest of my night's spent sobbing into bowls of disgustingly addictive ice cream, while crying my heart out at Bridget Jones, periodically followed by intermittent tear-jerker John Lewis' Christmas adverts.

Brilliant.

Jaq one, Aislin zero.

That night, after I'd swallowed my way through the Sea of Cookie Dough, I ended up cutting holes in Jaq's socks just to make myself feeling better.

The feeling was short-lived but damn did it taste good.