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Milk, butter, coffee, something for dinner.
That’s all he needed to find before he could go home.
Milk, butter, coffee, something for dinner.
Then, Darry would be able to draw the blinds, put an icepack on his temples, and try to drown out the hammering in his brain.
Milk, butter… Something… something for dinner.
The lights were too bright. They blared from the freezers. They beat down from overhead. Darry wasn’t sure why the store insisted on lighting the produce like it was staring in a Broadway show, but he’d had just about enough of it.
Something for dinner.
That’s all he really needed tonight. Everything else could wait until tomorrow. On his way to the canned vegetable aisle, Darry briefly considered abandoning his mission altogether—going home and having his brothers figure it out without him.
They wouldn’t starve. They could scrape something together from the back of the pantry—all the items that had been sitting back there for as long as Darry could remember because no one ever reached for them. Soda could make pancakes. Or potatoes. Hell, if he scrounged up the wilted bag of spinach in the back of the fridge, he’d probably even make a vegetable… and suspiciously green pancakes.
But he was already here. He’d made it through work and only thought he’d fall off the roof once. He could handle a little grocery shopping. Probably.
Milk, coffee…
Maybe.
Butter.
Hopefully.
Something for dinner.
Damn it, he was already here. He wasn’t leaving without the groceries.
“Darrel?”
A dagger stabbed Darry’s temples as he crashed back to reality. The grocery store. The last obstacle. The final boss.
He drew a deep breath and turned around slowly. Suddenly, he wished this was just a trip to the grocery store with an excruciating migraine. He wished he could turn back time and pick a different store or tell his brothers to starve. He wished he could snap his fingers—despite the agony of that stupid sound—and vanish from the store altogether.
But none of that happened. He was still standing in the vegetable aisle. There was no escape.
“Paul?”
The name felt bitter on his tongue. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the sudden nausea and the bile rising in his throat was a new symptom.
But he did know better. He knew all too well.
Paul looked exactly how he remembered—not a day past high school graduation. No deep circles chiseled permanently beneath his eyes. No hunched shoulders, broken from carrying the weight of the world.
“What are you doing here?” Paul asked.
Darry scoffed and tried to wipe the pain off his face. “Same thing you are: buying groceries.”
“Yeah, I can see that, but—“ he hesitated. “How long have you had that headache?”
Darry froze. It almost reminded him of talking to Soda. Being near someone who’s known you long enough to know something is wrong before you even have the chance to suggest it. Someone who picks up on little changes like you have them written across your chest. Someone who you’ve known so long that you can’t hide from them. Someone who…had every inch of you memorized in a forgotten lifetime.
“I—I don’t know,” Darry stammered. “Since this morning, I guess.”
“So the question remains, Darrel.” Paul stepped closer. “What are you doing here?”
“I have to,” he said confidently. “Someone’s gotta do it.”
“I’m sure it can wait a day—“
Paul stopped talking when Darry’s expression shifted.
“Are you at least—“
Darry stopped him this time. “It’ll be quick—faster if you stop talking, Holden.” He dropped a can of green beans into the cart, trying to hide his grimace as it clattered against the metal cage. “Milk, butter, coffee, dinner—then I’m gone.”
Paul didn’t respond. Not right away anyway.
Darry felt trapped. Like his feet had been glued to the floor and he couldn’t leave until he won. Until he was the only one still standing by the creamed corn. Until Paul Holden finally left and let him be.
Paul didn’t leave. “Alright,” he said finally, “let me help.”
“Paul, no.”
He hated the way Paul seemed to worm his way into his life. How one minute he was there, and the next he was gone for ten months until the day Darry wanted to see him least. Until he thought the day couldn’t get any worse. Until one more haunting reminder of the life he lost might just push him over the edge.
Another knife in his brain. Another glimpse of the fluorescent lights. Another wave of dizziness.
Paul Holden’s stupid hand against his shoulder so he didn’t topple into the display.
A peace offering.
“Fine,” Darry muttered, palm against his temple.
Paul put his hands on the cart. “Good. Now get in.”
“What?”
“Well, you can’t walk,” Paul snapped. He motioned to the cart again. “Get in. Sit down.”
“No,” Darry said immediately. “Paul, that’s humiliating.”
A small smirk tugged at the corner of Paul’s lips. “It wasn’t when you were pushing during junior year.”
The memory slammed him harder than the headache.
It wasn’t every day they won a football game… it was more like ‘only every Friday.’ The team was on a roll.
Paul’s new catchphrase was “this is our year, boys”—usually declared with a red solo cup in his hand and his feet wobbling on the table in someone else’s garage.
Tonight was no different. An easy win. 56-13. The other team had never stood a chance.
Darrel and Paul had left the garage twenty minutes ago. They were due back any minute. But as Darry pushed the cart up and down the aisles of the store and Paul whooped and hollered from the basket—already drunk off his ass and eager to make it someone else’s problem—it seemed they might not make it back as soon as anticipated.
“Just get in the cart, man,” Darry had said after watching Paul stumble into another display. “Get in the cart and you can tell me where to go.”
Paul did so with no hesitation and minimal tripping over his own feet. “We need corn nuts,” he slurred. “And chips—good ones.”
Darry nodded.
“And soda. More mixers. And—“
“Do you want to just take the whole store with us?” Darry interrupted.
“Nah, just the essentials.”
Darry didn’t mention that “the essentials” were items he’d never seen in his own house before.
Yet as they cruised up and down the aisles, Darry pushing the cart with one foot and gripping the handle as the cart glided past every vegetable in sight, he couldn’t help but laugh.
It was weird. Like nothing he’d done before and nothing he’d do again and something that would never quite leave his mind.
“A lot had changed since then,” Darry said flatly.
“Not enough if we’re still standing in the same supermarket aisle,” Paul countered.
Darry couldn’t argue with him there. Well—not much had changed in Paul’s life. Tonight, he’d go home to his pristine house in his pristine neighborhood and lie on a couch worth a month’s worth of wages and drink half his father’s liquor cabinet, until he couldn’t feel a thing and the world narrowed to just the two feet in front of his face.
By the time Darry got home, there would be a haphazard pile of shoes by the door. Six people would cause a racket in his living room until they realized what he was going through. Then the world would be silent—finally. The curtains would close themselves. A washcloth would fall over his eyes and an ice-cold coke would appear on his nightstand and he’d never even hear socked feet creep out of his room.
Paul spoke again. “Just get in the cart and you can tell me where to go.”
Darry finally gave in. He threw his legs over the basket, tumbling in unceremoniously.
The wires pressed into his back, yet it felt so much better than the ache in his legs after standing all day.
“Milk first?” Paul whispered.
Darry nodded, eyes screwing shut as the vessel began to move. “Store brand—on the bottom shelf.”
Paul didn’t say anything. Darry felt the cold jug brush against his leg.
“Coffee next. Whatever’s on sale.”
“Sure.”
The cart shifted forward again. For just a second, Darry felt like it was junior year again. Like he’d go back to Paul’s garage and his buddies would welcome him back with open arms and he would let them.
But Paul wasn’t drunk. Not yet. And Darry wasn’t laughing. And he wouldn’t be.
Not until he got home. Back to his real friends. To the people who had stayed by his side when his world shattered.
The ones who’d come over with beer they couldn’t afford and dinner someone’s neighbor made and open arms. The ones who didn’t wait four months to call. Who had missed the funeral because they had a ski trip that day.
Butter.
He ran a hand across the box in his lap.
Another item fell into the cart. He didn’t know what it was, but surely Soda would be able to cook it as soon as Darry brought it home.
“That’s everything,” Paul said.
“Thanks,” Darry muttered.
“Let me get the bags. I’ll put them in the car and we’ll get you home.”
Darry opened his eyes just a crack. “We?”
“You’ll never manage to drive home like this.”
Darry started to climb out of the cart, grabbing the bag as he did. “I’ve got it, Paul. Look, I appreciate your help, but I’m good. Really.”
“Darrel, I—“
“I don’t want to go home in your car,” Darry cut him off. “Then I have to trek back here at four in the morning so I can get to work on time.”
“We’ll take your car then.” Paul didn’t hesitate. “Give me your keys.”
“What?”
Darry wasn’t sure what to think. Part of him thought if he opened his eyes, he wouldn’t see Paul standing in front of him, but a complete stranger who he’d never met before in his life.
Paul Holden didn’t offer to help. Paul Holden didn’t inconvenience himself for someone else. Paul Holden didn’t walk three miles across the east side of Tulsa, Oklahoma to save someone else time and effort in the morning.
“We’ll take your car,” he said again. “I’ll walk back—or call for a ride—to get mine.”
Darry stared at him for a second longer before he forfeited his keys.
He didn’t argue—it wasn’t worth it anymore. He just collapsed into the passenger seat and let the car start without lifting a finger.
He didn’t remember most of the ride. It didn’t stand out nearly as much as his ride around the supermarket.
He remembered the part where the car stopped in his driveway. When Paul opened the door and helped him out of the car and pressed the keys back into the palm of his hand.
“Do you want to use the phone?” Darry asked. “Call a ride?”
Paul smiled. “No, I’ll walk.”
Darry turned to walk up the steps. “Thanks, Paul.”
“You’re welcome. Take care of yourself, Darrel.”
Darry didn’t respond. He just nodded and watched Paul turn to walk back the way they came.
He shut the door behind him.
For just a moment, he considered looking outside. He thought if he peeked out the window, he’d catch another glimpse at Paul as he sauntered back to the store. He could watch him leave again.
But he didn’t. He drew the blinds closed and didn’t look back.