When I got home, I had this sense of urgency overtaking me. I needed to read those diary entries and I needed to read them fast. The faster I read them, the closer I could get to Eleanor and God, did I want to be close to her. I wanted to get inside...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It was crazy and completely insane but I was running to my nearest hardware store the second the idea came to me. It was a fifteen minute walk, I was hoping I could make it a ten minute jog. I wasn't sure how long everything was going to take, but I wanted to make sure I was home before her walk with Nyla was over.
I arrived with sweat in my hair, dripping down the sides of my face, trying to conceal from people around me that I was out of breath, breathing heavily through my nose. My cardio was and still is absolutely horrible.
I looked around for an employee, holding my hand up in the air when they looked my way so that I could catch his attention. He looked bothered that I needed help and it made me want to roll my eyes. I let out a sigh as we both walked closer to each other.
"Hey man, I was just wondering where I could get these keys copied?" I inquired, the three keys dangling from my hand. I gripped them tight the whole way here to not lose them.
I didn't know which key was the right one to her apartment, so I needed all of them to be copied so I could test each one out when the time arose. I knew it was going to be expensive but I was hoping not too much.
"Yeah, right over here." He mumbled and I almost didn't hear him. I only assumed he said that because he turned and started to walk away.
I followed close behind him so as to not lose sight of him and he led me to this big machine in the section near the door handles and locks. I should've known it was here but I didn't want to risk wasting any time looking.
"So all three of these?" He questioned me as he took Eleanor's keys from me.
"Yes, that's right." I told him, putting my hands in the pockets of my jeans, looking around the area to not watch this seventeen year old's every move and make him feel weird.
After a long twenty minutes that felt more like an hour, the employee handed me all three keys with a little paper. "I'll bring you over to the cash area so someone can check that out for you."
I followed him to the cash and gave him a nod as a thank you before he walked away, but he didn't even look at me.
I sighed and waited for the person in front of me to finish paying for their paint cans before I walked up and placed the three keys on the counter with the paper that the employee gave me. "Hey, three keys, please." I mumbled, not knowing what else I was supposed to say.
The cashier picked up the paper and read it, before typing a couple things into her computer.
"$75, please." She reported, standing there with her hands resting on her side of the counter.
I almost jumped back and my jaw slightly dropped before I quickly shut it. $75 to copy three keys? That price seemed a little steep. I guess I would do anything for Eleanor, so I pulled out my wallet and paid with my credit card, wincing a little bit but trying to hide that from the cashier.
