Worlds Apart

Chapter One

Thoughtfully I puffed out my cheeks as I scoured the shelves.

Honestly how many types of bottled water could there be? It's like being on a bloody game show. Pick your bottle, I dare you. Remember, if you choose wrong, the water bottle police will be knocking on your door tonight and it'll be worse than Courtney Love on a bad day.

In the end I just chose one at random before turning on my heel, rolling the bottle in my hand as I peered disinterestedly at the label.

I didn't get too far - only two steps - before I was pulled up short by an immobile body. In actuality I saw his feet first, those knackered converse, and it was with a glance upwards I caught the perplexed look on the twenty something's face.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. The confusion that littered his voice was bridging onto insulting.

Raising my eyebrows, I looked down at the water bottle in one hand then the basket I had hooked on my arm that was filled to the brim with groceries. I'm starting a religion, what does it look like I'm doing? The sarcastic words were on the tip of my tongue but I held them back - with great difficulty. I couldn't prevent the withering look that I sent the anonymous boy, though. It was time to start wearing sunglasses inside it seemed.

"I'm shopping," I responded flatly.

There was a long pause where he just stared at me without so much as a blink as if I might disappear if he did, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was stoned. I should be used to staring by now, half my career happened with people staring at me, though half of my normal time was spent with people staring at me as well.

Apparently stoner kid couldn't get his head around my words, because he said in the slowest voice possible, "Why?"

What did he think I was going to do, hire a team of personnel to do the grocery shopping for me? While I'm at it I might as well get someone to wipe my ass for too. Reminding myself that stoner kid wasn't the most annoying thing to happen to me all day – the worst were the people who stood from afar with their cellphones snapping pictures without having the grace to say a word to me – I once again swallowed my words.

 Anyways, I probably didn't want to scare the stoner and make him paranoid for his next highs, that'd be a bitch move on my part. It was just me channeling these nerves to make me an egotistical jerk. People around me might not like the result, but everyone who didn't know me seemed to love it.

"I eat," I finally decided on.

When he kept staring at me with the wide eyes, I gave a sigh, staring at him with in a similarly unblinking fashion.

"But you're Jude Turner, aren't you?"

And that meant I couldn't walk into a grocery store?

The best reaction in the world to this was to say a short no and then walk away, leaving the person stuck in the middle of what had just happened. However, I didn't want him to think that whatever he was on was giving him hallucinations, so I'd meet him half way.  "It's up for discussion."

With that I edged past stoner kid, leaving him even more bewildered than when I'd first seen him.

To be honest I sped up my step towards the checkout, half of the reason for that being I didn't want to be still standing there when he worked out my words, though it seemed like it would take him a while, truthfully. Plus I knew that if I lingered any longer than I already had in the store, I might be here for hours.

Dawdling felt like it would be my number one mistake today, well, unless I was in the mood to be in the middle of a mob on my day off. Usually people didn't believe who I was at first glance and by the time they took their second one, I'd already be gone. That was the idea, there were always the runners though, believe me. It was when I was strolling about listlessly not expecting it that the message got around of the sighting, and then they descended.