I pointed at the syrup. “Was this always here? I mean, did you put this here? Or was it here al this time?”
His head lurched back on his neck and he eyed me through his glasses. “I beg your pardon?”
“I just want to know if I’m going crazy or not,” I blurted out.
“Because this wasn’t here a second ago and yet now it is.
Explain that.”
I heard Mikeala inhale sharply.
“Are you accusing me of hiding the syrup?” the man asked incredulously. And loudly. I think the entire shop turned its head to look our way.
“No,” I said, my face going beet red. The thing was, I did feel like he hid it on me. I could see his beady little face as he came up to the line to place his order, like he had this whole thing plotted out. When I wasn’t looking, he’d take the syrup to mess me up, and then put it back. Make me waste my time. Make me look crazy.
“I’d just like my drink then. Please,” he added, with false politeness.
“Wel , you’re not getting your drink until you say you’re sorry,” I said.
The store grew quiet. So quiet I could hear the edges of his newspaper fluttering from the waves of shock that I was sure were hitting him. I couldn’t quite believe it myself but I couldn’t stop myself, either.
“Perry, I don’t think you’re feeling wel ,” Mikeala said, placing her hand on my arm and gripping it hard.
I glared at her and ripped my arm out of her bony grasp.
“Oh, don’t you try and coddle me,” I said. “I know when I’m being made to look like an idiot. And that’s just what this guy is doing. Doesn’t like the look of me, thinks I’m unstable.”
Someone in the back of the shop let out a smal laugh and my blood boiled inside my head. I’d find who did it, find them and kil them.
“Perry,” Ash’s voice said from behind me. It was soft and shaking. “Can I talk to you for a second, Perry?”
He asked so politely, so…afraid, that it caught me off-guard.
And I realized what I was doing. I was fighting with a customer over a bottle of syrup.
As if everything slowed down, I saw Mikeala’s awestruck, angry face, her smal mouth open in shock, I saw Hipster Glasses’s fingers clutch the newspaper tightly, I saw Ash’s sunny face clouded over in fear, and maybe pity, and I saw myself, bitter, red-faced and seething from a reality that wasn’t quite there.
I looked at everyone, the faceless blurs in the crowd, then I turned around and ran into the back room. Ash fol owed me and tried to calm me down, tried to get some sense of what was happening, but he couldn’t leave Mikeala out there al alone and I was no help whatsoever. I couldn’t begin to explain a thing except that I wasn’t myself.
I wasn’t wel . The only thing I was good for was keeping out of the public eye, and with a quick phone cal to Shay, I was sent home for the rest of the shift.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The ride home was absolutely miserable. There’s real y nothing worse than riding in the rain and even though you’d think I would be used to it from living in the Pacific Northwest and al , it stil sucked. But it suited my mood, suited the level of defeat I felt from the meltdown with the customer.
How could I have been careless, to let my emotions get the best of me like that? I was acting out of character and succumbing to my own paranoia that there wasn’t something right with me. I just couldn’t seem to get my head screwed on properly, couldn’t seem to focus and bring myself into the present, into the here and now. Even the ride home, with the nasty, cold rain and the wind that picked up as I rode and battered me from the side, even that felt like it happened to someone else.
I cal ed for my mom but she was out, so I went upstairs to my room, each step rising above me like a mountain, and crawled right into bed.
I lay on my back for a while, just staring up at the speckled ceiling. I was numb and grateful for it. I knew there was a whirlpool of feelings just churning beneath the surface, waiting to come out. Al I had to do was think about how scared I was and how alone I felt. Al I had to do was wish I had someone at my side who would know what was wrong with me and do whatever they could to fix me. I had that once and I didn’t have it anymore. If I thought about that, the tears would never stop coming, so I pushed the thoughts away.
Rol ing over on my side, I spied a pamphlet that my mother had brought back from the hospital, sitting on my bedside table. I picked it up and flipped through it. It was al about miscarriages and the recovery process and was littered with poorly drawn cartoons. I was surprised it wasn’t cal ed So, You’ve Had a Miscarriage!
I wondered if losing time and accosting customers were part of the side effects. There was mention of heavy bleeding and cramps, but that al stopped a few days ago. I suppose since my pregnancy (it was stil weird to refer to it as that) wasn’t even one term, I got lucky. Though nothing about my life seemed the slightest bit lucky anymore.
The other thing the pamphlet mentioned was how every woman reacted differently. Some women were distraught beyond repair and needed to mourn the loss. Others didn’t feel much of anything. I stil didn’t know how I felt but I knew my body was healing at a much faster rate than my mind.
Sometimes I felt like I didn’t even know who I was anymore.
Even though it was the afternoon and a weak sun was pushing apart the rain clouds and streaming in through my windows, I fel asleep with tears teasing the corner of my eyes and the pamphlet folded open in front of me. When I came to, it was almost dark. The clouds had rol ed back in and a wind rattled the window pane every couple of seconds. A layer of frigid air seemed to descend from the ceiling and I shivered intensely, bringing my blanket in closer around me.
There was a knock at my door but before I had a chance to panic, it opened, revealing Ada.
“I didn’t think you were home,” she said, hovering in the doorway, backlit from the hal .
“I was napping. It’s freaking freezing in here, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. She was only wearing leggings and a lacy tunic. “So what do you want?”
“Huh?” I asked.
She crossed her arms. “I’ve got to get ready. I’m going out with Layton. What is it?”
I frowned at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Wel , you just cal ed me,” she said impatiently.
“No I didn’t. What do you mean?”
“Yes you did,” she said as she gave me a strange look.
“You were just yel ing Ada, Ada, Ada.”
I sat up. “Nooooo, I wasn’t. I was sleeping.”
She raised her eyebrow. “Sleeping and texting?”
“What?”