Chapter Text
She was rifling through a row of miscellaneous and admittedly drab pieces of apparel lining a hollow metal rack at the back of a department store. Not boring enough to leave outright, but not interesting enough for her to really say she was having a great time; just the bare minimum. Steady hit of dopamine.
One soft screech of thin wire hanger across an old brass rod after another. Beads on an abacus?
Incrementally deracinating each piece from one small group to another. The stack on the right slowly shrinking – migrating to the left; future waning, past full to bursting. Just as she was reminded of those chemical cells she was learning about after Bible study in her hometown, she finally started to get a sense for how pointless this all was – not able to completely recall how she got here in the first place.
Am I supposed to meet somebody?
A sort of strange and spontaneous question, but the only one coming to mind as she turned to face the rest of the shop: a maze of cheap metal clothing racks – some parts tackily shiny, others muddled with what looked like years of the dust and dirt of foot traffic. A stylized “BJ” hung on a rickety wooden door to her right, and an empty, cluttered desk occupied the far side of the room under the name “J. Pendarvis” scribed in cursive on a wall-mounted wooden plaque.
Right – she didn’t exactly remember how, but she had hurried over to the shop after being invited by Ghost to have more exciting discussions on how wonderful pants were; they really were always an undervalued and misunderstood choice of clothing to her, and finally there was someone in her life who agreed.
Boo Jeans
She was at the place where she first spent time with Ghost the Boy; sharing interests, getting distracted, losing track of time. For the first time in her life, she felt she could truly be as wild, carefree, and even silly as she wanted when they were together. Unfathomably refreshing, since, before now, monotony had reigned over her day to day for as long as she could remember.
She was practically raised by routine and structure; either the stifling, cold rigidity of a tool used by those around her to cast her in their mold, or a shield she raised hoping it’d keep her mind off things for a little longer.
But, none of this … mattered? Existed? When she was with him.
Ghost made “structure” feel irrelevant. Obsolete, even – almost made her completely forget that in the moments leading up to their meeting, she was completely lost. Alone – wandering a frozen tundra having just survived an avalanche.
And yet, he made her feel like she wasn’t lost at all. Like the concept of lost could never apply to her again. That they could just leave lost behind in a box on a shelf in the closet.
“But doesn’t that scare you?”
The thoughts of Ghost faded abruptly as this line echoed sharply from somewhere beyond the confines of the shop causing a jeering “you” to bounce between the walls until it gradually faded to nothing.
She froze upon recognizing the husky, aloof, London accent and snarky tone of the voice seemingly emitting from a PA system in the distance: Susie.
Susie was a friend. An ally at the very least. That much she knew well despite Susie’s – unorthodox – approach to what might be considered friendly interaction.
Although dissenting, sometimes vehemently, to Susie’s methods and practice, she looked up to her in many ways. She knew Susie had witnessed hundreds of more years than she had and that the head witch drew her methods from this extensive experience. Susie was the boss – and she deserved the title.
That said, knowing all this didn’t make it sting any less when Susie shot her down. And most of the time, she was right.
“You didn’t see nothing.”
The words shook the floorboards beneath her this time. A primal fear welled in her throat as the light bulbs zapped, flickered, and shattered from the fluorescent lamps above her. Next thing she knew, she had lost her footing — the hardwood panels becoming an erratic treadmill causing her to tumble into one of the densely stocked racks of deep blue denim.