Some Place Better Than Here

Chapter 2: Lost in the Supermarket

That could've been bad, I thought, while rubbing my own shoulder that pleasantly did not appear to be fractured or dislocated or something. I flexed to shrink the throbbing.

Slight Shot

Head Shot

High Speed / Collision

I attempted to make some rhyme out of the scenario as I collected the last of the scattered gum packages off the floor, and then slotted them in their spots back above the celebrity tabloid magazines on the display rack.

At this point, I felt stupidly out of place. I knew I was going to get in trouble for ditching work, and I felt exposed. Like I had made an enemy. I didn't know what I was; I had tried pretending I was something. I thought of a bunch of things I could've been: a superhero in hiding, an Australian exchange student, stoned like Max, unaware and out of his senses. Maybe I'd caught some of his second-hand smoke? But nothing plausible came to me. I looked to my feet for the answer, which didn't help. All I could pay attention to was how the leather toes of my workboots were carved down like a rash. My mind blanked of lyrics—how could I blank of lyrics? I was always thinking of lyrics.

But when I looked up on the sound of the tarp flopping, lyrics didn't seem to matter anymore.

Actually, nothing really seemed to matter when the whole world apparently stopped so the sexiest brunette that I had ever seen could strut on through from behind the tarp.

Her every stride swung in slow motion. The way she wrapped her honey-dipped hair in a ponytail, a complete act of seduction. The sway and rocking of her hips, a more than polite introduction.

God Damn, I can sure rhyme, and curves will kill you if you're not careful.

When my too dry lips peeled apart, I realized I had become that guy. Totally forgetting that this amazingly hot girl was just involved in a shouting match about ten seconds prior to my being captivated by her hotness. Reality refilled when she stepped behind the register counter and let out a huge sigh.

I plopped the bagels horizontally on the white countertop. She kept on fixing her hair. I glanced down at the bagels, then glanced back at her, still fixing her hair. I wasn't sure if I should keep waiting until she stepped out of her bubble, or if I should say something, but clearly she knew someone was standing there, so....

"Are you okay?" I blurted.

"Uh. Yeah?" she said, looking down, still trying to make her hair work. "You heard that? Well, duh, of course you heard that. I shouted. We shouted. He shouted. My boyfriend shouted. Um, I mean, God, my, uh, ex-boyfriend, a douchebag who's not important anymore, shouted."

"Oh."

When it appeared as though she had mastered whatever variation of ponytail she was aiming for, she grabbed a red apron wrapped in a messy bundle off the counter and tied it below her plush chest, emphasizing the obvious arch from her stomach to breasts.

Though it wasn't until she finally looked up at me, making awkward customer service eye contact, and I saw how her silver nose-ring gleamed in the light, that I realized this girl wasn't hot.

My God, she was fucking gorgeous.

==========MARY==========

I stormed straight for the storage room. I knew exactly why Tanner had showed up. A stroke of brilliance must have forged somewhere in the silly-putty sufficing for his gray matter that, for literally the millionth time, like a door-to-door Jehovah's Witness, he would try to convince me that I needed him in my life. Eff that shit. I've done everything without even God so far, so why in the name of life would I need Tanner?