Supermarket(70)

A calm washed over me like I’d never felt before. A calm that made me feel whole again.

The pills did just what they were supposed to. Just not how they were supposed to.

Flicking the lid of the Zippo, I struck the wick to light a cigarette to no avail. “Flynn, you were doing so well,” Frank said, bubbles forming from the blood covering his lips, popping as he spoke. He began to evanesce, flickering in and out of sight.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” I muttered as I struck it again, this time igniting a cherry at the end of the cigarette. I noticed the words Vanilla Sky engraved across the top of the lighter. This immediately made me think of the Paul McCartney song.

“I think the moment calls for it,” I said, smoke exiting my nostrils as I brought the lit cigarette to Frank’s lips. He reached for it.

“There you go,” I said. “Now puff.”

I heard sirens approaching in the distance.

Police cars and fire engines pulled up in front of the store.

The blood from his lips stained the butt of the cigarette, like a single mother driving an Astro van in the early 1990s, picking up her fifth-grade son from soccer practice with that poufy hair and shoulder-pad look, you know the one.

“This is all Lola’s fault, you know,” he said.

“I know,” I replied. We both laughed until the jolt in his chest from doing so enhanced the pain, reminding us of the whole dying thing going on.

“Flynn, what’s—what’s my—my . . . last na—”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I told you that already.”

“Flynn, did we have fun?” he asked.

“You ruined my life.”

Frank exhaled a large cloud of smoke. Another breath never followed.

Frank was dead, and I was sane. In the supermarket.





THE END





EPILOGUE


Flynn read the last page of his memoir, Supermarket. It was about the mental breakdown he had endured while writing Muldoon’s, his first novel. He turned the page and slammed the book shut.

“The end,” he said.

“Well, I think it’s a great story, baby!” Mia said. She was sitting across from Flynn, her hand resting on a stack of law books she was using for a case she was working on.

They were in the booth of a diner. But not just any diner, in fact. It was the diner, the diner where it all started.

It was their last stop before they caught a flight to New York City, to start their new life together.

It was the diner where Lola had broken up with him years ago, the diner where a waiter by the name of Frank worked. It was the same diner Dr. Olivia Cross told Flynn to visit in order to get closure. That was if he ever made it out of his delusion.

Now he could speak with the waiter who he had based the character of Frank on. The same waiter who had just arrived with a pot of coffee. He began to pour.

The creamer hit the bottom of the cup, marbling the black coffee like two universes colliding.

“Hey, uh . . . Frank, is it?” Flynn asked.

“Yeah?” said the waiter.

“What’s your last name?”

The man paused, looked at the ground for a moment, and then looked back up at Flynn, puzzled.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


First and foremost I’d like to thank my best friend, Christian. After a week of binge-reading novels for the first time in my life in my midtwenties, I sat up and said, “I’m gonna write a book,” to which Christian replied, “You can’t write a fuckin’ book just because you’ve been reading them.” It was all the motivation I needed.

I want to thank every single fan for joining me on this experience and next chapter of my creative outlet. I’m excited for everything else to come.

I also want to thank Stuart Roberts and the fine people at Simon & Schuster for giving a kid who didn’t graduate high school a book deal. Stuart, my editor, has challenged me and helped me grow as a writer, and I look forward to the many years ahead of creating entire universes together.

Thank you to Henry Abrams for reading the first pass of my book and just genuinely enjoying it. That gave me the confidence to continue.

A huge thank-you to my literary agent, Cait Hoyt, at CAA. Because of you this book found a home.

Chris Zarou. Thank you for believing in my vision and giving me the courage to venture out into another avenue of entertainment. And Harrison Remler for all his late nights in the Visionary office making my wild ideas of how to get things like this in the hands of our fans possible.

Mikey, my partner and producer at Bobby Boy, to whom this book is dedicated. I would like to thank my best friend, Frank, for being the first person ever to read the manuscript, along with Juan and his beautiful girlfriend, Miranda! Thank you both for truly diving into the world I created.

I cannot forget to thank my favorite living author, Ernest Cline. Not only for his work, which has inspired me vastly, but for his friendship. Ernest, Ernie: Thank you for the love and kind words from one author to another. You are the Jedi master—I love and appreciate you.

I’d like to thank Mia, the fictional character I wrote and created from my mind. The sweetest, coolest, kindest, nicest, most understanding, and completely unrealistic woman I ever thought up in my head. At least until I meet a woman greater than even you.