[ unedited ] - beside is how I pictured Eli to look, and the song below it is from the movie soundtrack of 'Bedtime Stories', which was what I listened to while writing the bathroom scene and honestly, i think it fits perfectly with them, so check it out~
So this was how it felt to die.
Or, how it felt to feel like you were about to die. With complete darkness making you feel like you've closed your eyes, and running footsteps frantic about the power outage. I stood in my place, frozen in utter shock and becuase I didn't really know what to do.
Where the hell were the floodlights? The emergency generator? Didn't grocery stores -- or any stores for that matter -- have an emergency plan? So far, all I was hearing were hushed whispers and footsteps and Eli's voice calling out my name --
Wait.
"Eli...?" It started out as a croak, an insignificant croak in the middle of the dark. Then, I tried screaming louder for him, and in a few seconds, I could hear footsteps coming way, which would've been terrifying for a girl who had an allergic reaction to horror movies, but since I could smell Eli's suffocating cologne, I was pretty much safe.
He was stumbling around in the darkness, "Vienna? Y-you there?"
"I'm here," I squeaked.
"Um, Vienna?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you still have my iPod?"
"Y-Yeah, why?"
"Pull it out, quick," he ordered with a frantic voice that clearly matched my panicked emotions. I did what he asked, and clicked the Home button, instantly slicing through the dark with a white-hot beam of light.
And in that beam of light, I saw Eli's shadowed face only four inches away from mine, the shadows making the contours of his eyes look murderous. His eyes, darker than even the blackest of black, stared at me in surprise and maybe relief. Jolting, I stepped back on impulse, clutching my heart and dropping my Ruffles bag.
"Don't do that!" I scolded. Why was my heart pounding so fast?
"Sorry," he said softly, backing away and keeping his eyes down. "I couldn't really see where I was going, if you haven't noticed: the power went out."
"Yeah, no, I didn't really notice," I told him offhandedly, just as another clap of thunder broke apart into rumbles above the roof.
I held the iPod as our only source of light, and soon, one of the workers found us in the glorious snack aisle. She was the same woman from the only open cash register, and she was clutching a flashlight, looking a bit frazzled.
"Oh, my, I'm deeply sorry for this inconvenience, you guys," she apologized. In the shortage of light, I noticed she couldn't have been more than two years older than us; a college girl.
"It's fine--" I was about to say, but Eli broke me off.
"When will the power come back on?"
Marie the Cashier frowned. "I'm not really sure... My boss closed up for the evening, and I signed up for the late night shift, but I had no clue... I really thought we had generators or something," she said breathlessly, "But all we got are some flashlights in the back."
When she saw that our only source was Eli's fading iPod, she led us to the back of the store to look for more flashlights. On the way, the store just got ten times more creepy. Rain hammered the windows and it was clear now that we were the only three in the Safeway store. To say that I was petrified was an understatement, but when I glanced at Eli, his jaw was tightened and his fists clenched.
"I'm so sorry, so sorry," Marie kept apologizing, "I should've closed down way earlier, but I guess I needed the raise." She chuckled nervously, and led us into a side room, where she fumbled with her keys in the dark.
"Here, lemme," I offered her the light from the iPod, and after holding up the large ring of about thirty keys, she finally found the right one.
"Thanks," she smiled kindly, and stumbled into the room. Eli and I waited outside, and I took this opportunity to ask why he was freaking out.
"Hey, you've been freaking out since the car," I nudged him as casually as I could, "You alright?"
He only glanced at me before giving a sideward nod, "Just dandy."
"Then why are you so tense?"
"Are you always this annoying?" he snarked. He folds his arms across his chest and leans against the wall. Without even wanting to notice it, the effortless look was plastered all over him.
"It's one of my off-days," I waved a hand, letting slip a grin without meaning to, "You should see me on one of my good days. I can drive you crazy."
He scoffed, trying to hide his smirk. I saw it anyway, even through the dark. "Honestly, I'd take you up on that offer."
My eyes widened and I wasn't really sure what he'd meant, or rather if I wanted to acknowledge it, but Marie returned with two flashlights and a heavy looking yellow box.
"Oh, uh, I don't think we'll be staying for long," I managed. Marie had certainly stocked up.
"Oh. You aren't?" Disappointment was something she freely showed.
"Yeah, we're kind of a schedule," Eli shrugged.
Marie's face fell, and I felt terrible wanting to leave her all alone in this Safeway, but why couldn't she just go home?
"I'm afraid none of us can leave," she drawled.
Eli and I shared a glance. His eyes were wide with fright and I knew we shared the same, chilling thought: was Marie a secret serial killer?
"Uh..." Eli's voice trails off, and he was about to say something, when Marie belly-laughs. A sharp piercing yet pleasant sound, much like bells, fills the room.
"Oh, no, I'm not gonna trap you guys in here," the crinkles of her eyes tighten with her smile, "It's not like I'm a serial killer or anything! I swear it on my life. But since the electricity's out, the only way out is through those --"
She lifted her flashlight towards the metal slider sliding doors.
"And they only open with electricity, something we don't have," Marie finished.
"That's not possible," I muttered under my breath, walking over to the doors. And like an idiot, I expected it to open magically when it sensed my movement. I expected the sensors to detect me, so I inevitably ran and slammed my face into the unmoving glass.
"Ow!" I instinctively raised a hand and rubbed my forehead. A sharp pain was at my temple, right where I crashed into the doors. Behind me, I could hear Eli chuckling without trying to hide it, and my cheeks grew warm and red hot with embarrassment.
But I didn’t want to give up. The sheer notion of being trapped inside a black-out in a grocery store had never occurred to me, until now, when the doors wouldn’t open, no matter how hard I tried to move.
I started flailing my arms and wiggling my legs and waved my hands at the doors, but they wouldn’t open.
“You look like you’re having a seizure,” Eli noted.
“Wonderful observation, Sherlock, but seizures are not a laughing matter,” I retorted, turning around to find Eli wearing – and pulling off – a smug smirk. “Marie, isn’t there any emergency button or lever for these kinds of things?”
“Well, that’s kinda the thing,” Marie explained, another thunderclap exploding above us. In the two seconds Eli showed some amount of vulnerability, I quickly caught a glimpse of fear in his eyes. I didn’t say anything. “They just built this Safeway two weeks ago, but the building itself is really old and when they inserted those those sliding doors, well – they’re basically ancient.”
“So… we can’t get out?” Eli asked.
“Not until the generator starts back up.”
“When will the generator start back up?”
“When the storm stops and the lights come back on, you’ll know.”
“And there aren’t any… back doors, or anything?” I asked, even a slightly bit hopeful. But even a slightly bit was different for me. If Elliot saw, he’d have been proud.
Wait.
Elliot!
“Eli, Elliot’s still out there!” I pointed out into the storm, the only thing separating us from the torrential rain and lightning was a thin piece of glass.
“So? He has the car, he’ll be fine,” Eli shrugged, not even slightly unfazed. “Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had left us already.”
“What? No… he wouldn’t do that.”
He scoffed, with poor Marie oblivious to all of this. “Of course he would, he has a dying girlfriend, remember?”
My eyes widened. “How did you know that?”
“You mean you didn’t? Damn. You guys truly are an open book,” he shook his head in mock disappointment, and I noticed he didn’t once make eye contact. Instead, he stared at the fresh produce he was standing next to. “And I overheard him back at Terrence’s house. It wasn’t that hard to figure out. But I am right, right? He would go there in a heartbeat if you weren’t holding him back.”
My jaw dropped, and suddenly, all the words were knocked out of me. Mainly because he was right.
“You take that back,” I whispered hoarsely.
Marnie’s eyes nervously darted from Eli to me to the doors, as if wishing she weren’t here at all. That would make two of us.
“You know what? I won’t,” Eli said, “I won’t take it back, because isn’t the truth better than anything?”
“Not if it isn’t the truth.”
“And where were you when he was on his phone for three damn hours?”
“I was… I was… -- “
“—you were asleep. I was there, I heard him say it to his own girlfriend back at the pool,” he said. And to torture me even more, he added, “You were holding him back from the one chance he had of ever seeing his girlfriend again. If you hadn’t asked him for a ride, he probably would have gotten to Bell Gardens by now. ”
Was it true? Was I really keeping Elliot away from the thing he wanted most?
I didn’t want to believe it, for two reasons; one, because that meant Eli was right and there was no way in hell that I would give him the satisfaction, and two, because I hated that I believed him.
My eyes veered straight for the ground, eventually finding their way to the doors that refused to open. If I squinted hard enough, I could see the outline of the gas station just a few meters away, where Elliot was probably waiting. Probably. Who knows? Maybe he bolted.
Words never came easily to me in times like these, no matter how hard I scavenged for a good comeback or retort. But what could you say to someone who was telling the cold, hard truth?
My uneasiness didn’t go unnoticed, because Marie raised her fist to her lips, clearing his throat nervously. “If you guys want… I can grab some food and we can wait for the generator to get back up?” she squeaked.
The notion of food made me sick, my hand clutching my stomach suddenly. Humiliation flared lively in my veins, and the only thing I could think about was I have to get out of here.
“I think I’m just gonna go to the bathroom,” I jerked a thumb to the left of me, despite whether or not the bathroom was actually in that direction. I didn’t look up, instead, I gripped the flashlight Marie had handed to me, and stalked off with the lone beam of light. To be honest, I had clue where the restrooms were, but I wasn’t going to ask Marie that. Because looking at Marie would have to mean glancing at Eli, and letting him see his success would be too easy.
“Actually, the bathroom’s the other way,” Marnie called after me.
I froze, spinning on my heel and giving her a thumbs up, eyes locked onto the pale linoleum floor. Muttering a soft thanks, I bolted out of their sight, letting the dim light of the flashlight guide me to the dark restrooms. Normally, going into the bathroom in the dead of night during a power outage would seem like a horrible idea, especially for a girl who refused to watch horror movies but inevitably knew all about them. But in the embarrassing heat of the ungodly moment, I didn’t give a shit.
The door swung open with the full force of my body, and I locked myself in one of the stalls. I propped the lid down on the toilet and sat down with the flashlight propped in between my thighs and pointed at the cieling. Homesickness overwhelmed me like a wave during a hurricane, and my emotions went rampant.
You’re holding him back.
Eli’s words had hurt more than I expected. I never should’ve enlisted for his help. I was right all along; hitchhiking would’ve been more appropriate.
Come on, Vienna, why did you ever think that asking him to take you home would be a good idea? Especially after seeing him a sobbing mess?
I let my head fall down in between my knees, taking the flashlight and setting it on the floor, letting it fall with a crash. I didn’t think this road trip would be so exhausting, and we were only in Texas. If anything, I would rather tell Elliot to go off by himself, than live with the guilt of slowing him down on his desperate journey to see Samantha.
If Samantha were to die before we got there…
No, Vienna, stop thinking like this.
Once or twice, the measure of the thunder was ear-shattering, but I only heard myself challenging it to rain harder, thunder louder, anything to distract myself from wanting to run away, ironically, back to my home.
There was something heavy in my pocket. Something square and metallic, and fishing for it, my fingers wrapped around Eli's iPod, the light still flashing and the screen unlocked. I couldn't help myself. I scanned his playlists for something to listen to, and fell upon nothing but Elvis and a couple of Beyonce songs. If I was somehow less-angry at him in the future, I'd definitely use that against him.
No matter how tempting the Beyonce songs seemed, I pressed PLAY on the Elvis tracks and put it on loops. Ironically, the first song was the King's "Don't Be Cruel."
The lyrics flowed out and filled the restroom, Don't be cruel, to a heart that's true, I don't wanna know that I love you, but baby it's still you I'm thinkin' of.
It would've taken double the energy to look for a less-fitting song, so I let it play and closed my eyes, rocking myself to sleep with the King on loop and the rain slamming down hard. There was nothing better - if I wasn't surrounded by the pungent odor of the bathroom and there wasn't a boy outside who I was keen on avoiding.
I must have fallen asleep for a while, because suddenly, there was a long tapping noise on the other end of the stall door.
“Vienna?” the voice was deep. Eli.
"Occupado."
"Come on, I gotta talk to you. Unlock the door, will you? Please?" he persisted.
"Negativo!"
"And stop speaking Spanish, your accent is horrible,"
"Now I'm definitely not letting you in," I muttered under my breath, clutching my knees closer and resting my head.
"Heard that."
"You were supposed to!"
There was suddenly silence and I flashed my light onto the bottom of the stall to see if he was still there. He was. "Is that... I-Is that my Elvis that's playing? Vienna, give me back my iPod."
"Hey... I didn't know you liked to listen to Queen Bey," I taunted, and for good measure, I turned up the volume on Single Ladies just as it came on the shuffle.
"My playlist is none of your business! Turn that down before someone hears!" I could practically feel him reddening through the door. "Please... just let me in and nothing gets hurt!"
Sighing heavily and unfurling my knees, I bent to reach my flashlight and unlocked the door, letting the stall creak open slowly. He was sitting down crosslegged, tapping the floor with his own flashlight.
“What the hell are you doing?” I found the anger I was looking for, but that had come out slightly stronger than I intended.
“What the hell do you mean?” he mocked my tone.
“I mean, what are you doing in the girl’s bathroom?” I pressed.
He tilted his head back, licking his lips and staring at me with what seemed like pity mixed with disbelief.
“You’re honestly kidding, right?”
“Kidding about what?”
“Vienna, you’re in the guys bathroom.”
I blinked, and raised my eyebrows, before letting them fall incredulously. “I am not, you’re just up to your shitty tricks.”
“Oh? I am? Well… what’s that then?” his voice trailed off and he picked himself up off his butt, waving a hand to whatever was behind him. And I was nonplussed to find that what he was showing me was a urinal. It was a men’s toilet, fastened onto the wall in all its glory.
“But since I haven’t been inside the girl’s bathroom, I don’t really know if you females have those kinds of toilets, so…”
I raised a hand to fake slapping him, and he steps back instinctively. Even in the dark, I could feel him grinning.
“I-It was dark, I couldn’t see the sign!” I said, a little too defensively.
“Right.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
He sighed heavily, “And so was I. Listen, about what happened earlier back there, I…”
Eli fell silent for a moment. It dawned on me that he was expecting me to interrupt him. That he wanted me to say it was alright and that it was okay and that I forgave him. I did no such thing.
He cleared his throat. Something told me he didn’t do this often, just by how much he shifted from one butt cheek to another in apprehensiveness. “I’m sorry, okay? There.”
“Gee, the sincerity of that just chokes me up,” I droned sarcastically.
“I don’t do this often!” he admitted, proving my assumptions. “What more do you want?”
“Hm, let’s see, for you to get on one knee and take my hand and claim that you’re an ignorant arsehole.”
A beat of silent awkwardness occurred between us, the faint light of both our flashlights creating darkened shadows on our faces and the walls. If my sarcasm wasn’t obvious, he hadn’t understood at all.
He scowled and struggled to retrieve his shredded manliness, “I’m not doing that.”
I kicked him in the knee softly, making him reel backwards, “Wuss.”
He let out what sounded like a chuckle and someone suppressing it, resulting in him uttering a choking noise.
“I.. I, uh, I didn’t think you would’ve ran like that. If I knew how upset you’d have gotten, I...” he trailed off again, leaving me to gap the silence.
“..you would never have said it?”
“Oh no, I would still would have said it. What can I say? I’m an honest guy, and lies don’t get you anywhere. I just would’ve gotten here quicker to say I was sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be,” I surprised myself by saying.
“But I am.”
Our eyes locked onto each other for a brief moment, my cheeks growing warmer to the touch. Seconds later, he breaks the contact and shrugs on his jacket. I cleared my throat, my heart beating at an abnormal rate, as I watched him stand on his feet.
“Uh, Marnie set up a feast back in the store… she’s waiting for you,” Eli informed me, grabbing both of our flashlights and offering me a hand off the toilet. It wasn’t really the place to be having such an apology-fest, but it fit.
“Her name’s Marie,” I corrected him as we walked out of the men’s bathroom together. “And if you tell anyone about our little jam-session in the boy’s bathroom, I will gut you.”
He chuckled heartily, shaking his head and resuming back to his tightlipped stance. “I was about to say the exact same thing.
“Great minds think alike, huh?” I raised my eyes towards him, and he glanced down at me, and no wonder the darkness scared me so much. His eyes blended in perfecty that it was frightening, but at the same time, calming to look at. Almost like hearing thunder.
Eli led me to the row of refrigerators and beverages lining the walls, and that was the first time that I had seen them without the lights igniting them inside. Sure enough, Marie was sitting crosslegged with some paper plates set out, and laying in front of her were food that made it feel like a minature Thanksgiving.
There was a warm Rotiserrie chicken surrounded by mashed potatoes and salad, with some red wine dressing and an informal two-liter bottle of Coke. Marie was pouring some into three glasses.
"There you two are!" she cried gleefully. "I almost thought you left me and ran with the wind, thank goodness you found her. You know, I'm kinda glad that in all the places to get stuck in during a storm, it had to be a grocery store. Let's eat!"
All three of us sat down, backs resting against the glass of the refrigerators in a row, silently eating our food while listening to the raging storm. As I stocked up on the chicken and the salads -- to which, Marie explained to me, was on the fresh bar and took no time preparing -- I could only think of Elliot. How bitterly selfish of me.
Eli was to my left and I said to him, "You think Elliot wants some chicken?"
He sighed, "Probably. The poor bloke is probably sitting down in his truck all by himself."
"You mean you don't think he'd have bolted by now?"
I watched with silent interest as he stuck a piece of chicken with a plastic fork and threw it in his mouth. "No, that was just wishful thinking."
I had laughed, even if I didn't mean to. "Really? I don't believe you."
"Well you should, because I was just saying it to say it. I know he cares about you," he said softly, "I strongly doubt he'd have ran away without us. He's much too... nice, for that kind of think, y'know?"
I chewed on the bits of salad lettuce and looked up at the cieling, being rewarded with my good friend, Thunder. "I 'spose."
"Hey..." my uneasiness did not go unnoticed, since his gaze was fully focused on me now. "I'm sure he's battering down the hatches, trying to get you through this storm."
When I didn't move or say anything, he added, "Honest."
And if it was supposed to make me feel better, it surprisingly worked.
- x -
[ a / n ] feeling really uncharaceristacally proud of myself for updating two days in a row ;') this one's for @handguns for being a breathtaking, flipping amazing author and really rad new friend and probably the only one who can relate with me on this chapter and the power outage and the crappy weather we've been having.
btw, this chapter was inspired by real life events; we had really bad weather last week and no power and no internet, and while we were out for a drive, I passed by a Wal-Mart and even that too didn't have any power, so I was kind of inspired by writing a power outage in a grocery store, because why not?? c;
hope you guys enjoyed. i wanted some eli scenes in there, so woot woooot. [ more to come and honestly, i'm so excited to reveal his story. after all, everyone has one. ]
votes, comments, and sharing are very much appreciated!