Reminders of Him(35)

Then you kissed the palms of all ten of my rubber hands.

“I have so many fingers now,” I said. “How will you afford to buy rings for all fifty of my fingers?”

You laughed and pulled me against you. “I’ll figure out a way. I’ll rob a bank. Or I’ll rob my best friend. He’ll be rich soon, that lucky bastard.”

You were referring to Ledger, although I’m not sure I knew that at the time, because I didn’t know Ledger. He had just signed a contract with the Broncos. I knew very little about sports, though, and nothing about your friends.

We were consumed by each other so much we hardly made time for anyone else. You were in class most days and I worked most days, so the little time we were able to spend together, we spent together alone.

I figured that would eventually change. We were just at points in our lives where we were each other’s priority, and neither of us saw that as a bad thing because it felt so good.

You pointed at something in the window of the store across the street and then you grabbed one of the tiny plastic hands and you held it as we headed in that direction.

I had this fantasy that you would someday propose to me and then we’d get married and have babies and raise them together in this town because you loved it here, and I would have loved anywhere you wanted to be. But you died, and we didn’t get to live out our dream.

And now we never will, because life is a cruel, cruel thing, the way it picks and chooses who to bully. We’re given these shitty circumstances and told by society that we, too, can live the American dream. But what they don’t tell us is that dreams almost never come true.

It’s why they call it the American dream rather than the American reality.

Our reality is that you’re dead, I’m in orientation for a shitty job making minimum wage, and our daughter is being raised by people who aren’t us.

Reality is depressing as fuck.

So is this job.

I should probably get back to it.

Love,

Kenna



Amy put me on the floor after I finished the three hours of orientation videos. I was nervous at first because I was expecting to shadow someone my first day, but Amy said, “Make sure the heavy stuff goes on the bottom, treat the bread and eggs like infants, and you’ll be fine.”

She was right. I’ve been bagging groceries and carrying them out for customers for two hours now, and so far, it’s just your average low-paying job.

No one warned me there could be job hazards on the first day, though.

That job hazard is named Ledger, and even though I haven’t laid eyes on him, I just spotted his ugly orange truck in the parking lot.

My pulse speeds up because I don’t want him to make a scene. I haven’t seen him since he showed up at my apartment Saturday night to check on me.

I think I handled myself pretty well. He seemed remorseful for treating me the way he did, but I kept my cool and acted unfazed, even though his showing back up definitely fazed me.

It gave me a little bit of hope. If he feels bad enough for how he treated me, maybe there’s a chance he could eventually grow empathetic toward my situation.

I’m sure it’s a small chance, but it’s still a chance.

Maybe I shouldn’t avoid him. Being in his presence might make him realize I’m not the monster he thinks I am.

I walk back inside the store and return the grocery cart to the rack. Amy is behind the customer service counter.

“Can I take a bathroom break?”

“You don’t have to ask permission to pee,” she says. “Remember how we met? I fake pee every hour when I’m here. It’s the only way I stay sane.”

I really like her.

I don’t have to use the restroom. I just want to walk around and see if I can spot Ledger. Part of me hopes he’s here with Diem, but I know he isn’t. He saw me applying for a job here, which means he’ll likely never bring Diem inside this store ever again.

I eventually find him in the cereal aisle. I was planning to just spy on him so I can keep tabs on him while he shops, but he’s at the same end of the aisle I appear at, and he spots me as soon as I see him. We’re just four feet apart from one another. He’s holding a box of Fruity Pebbles.

I wonder if those are for Diem.

“You got the job.” Ledger says this without any hint as to whether he even cares that I got the job, or if he’s bothered by it. I’m sure if he’s that bothered by it, he would have shopped somewhere else today. It’s not like he didn’t know I was trying to get a job here.

He’s going to have to find a new store if it bothers him because I’m not going anywhere. I can’t. No one else will hire me.

I look up from the box of cereal in his hands and immediately wish I hadn’t. He looks different today. Maybe it’s the fluorescent lighting or the fact that when I’m in his presence, I’m attempting not to look at him too closely. But here in the cereal aisle, the lights seem to illuminate him.

I hate that he looks better under fluorescent lighting. How is that even possible? His eyes are friendlier, his mouth is even more inviting, and I don’t like that I’m thinking good things about the man who physically pulled me away from the house my daughter was in.

I leave the cereal aisle with a new lump in my throat.

I changed my mind; I don’t want to be nice to him. He’s already spent five years judging me. I’m not going to change his view of me in the aisle of a grocery store, and I get too flustered in his presence to give him any semblance of a good impression.