Inferno

fourteen | the surprise

The supermarket air conditioner makes my complexion pale in the few minutes that I stand behind Chase while he decides between captain crunch and frosted flakes. Holding them side by side, he lifts one every second but fails to come to a conclusion. "When you're done choosing, maybe check the expiries again. Who knows, it might pass by the time."

"If I were you I'd check on my stale sense of humour. I'm sure you've got better, Leia," he dumps a large box of captain crunch atop the bazillion items in his cart, inclusive of ten packs of microwave pizza rolls. It's a mystery how those biceps have stood all that mozzarella, flour, and preservatives.

"So we're done?" I question, lugging myself poorly than the trolley with four rusty wheels and nearly facepalming when he turns to the meats and frozen section. Only, he stops abruptly all of a sudden, his backpack bumping into my face and my balance receding to make me grab onto the double stuff Oreo box poking out, for support.

"Hey, something urgent?" I notice he's on a call, his feet ticking while at it. "I guess, I'll call you if it works out. Sure, I'll try not to be one," tossing his phone in his denims, he begins scouting the aisle, looking at 10 different varieties of cold cuts, only to pick vegan meatballs when it comes to it. "Have you heard of the tomatina festival in Spain?" He turns to me, quizzical.

"Of course, that's so famous they try holding a rip off in Arizona every year. Although, it just ends up in a whole lot of tomato loot, nothing else," I shrug, further wrapping my jacket round my shoulders. "Why?"

"Well, Jo and the guys are planning to go and they asked if we wanted to, too?"

"Oh," I feel as if on the edge of a boat; one leg out, one in and at risk of causing a gruesome fatality if I don't pick a side. I thought I was fine with not knowing what we are, but it's instances like these that just make it further more muddled. Who's to say what hanging out with his friends on a regular basis qualifies in the awkward phase handbook? "Is everyone coming?"

"Yeah, kind of," he nods, finally pulling in the queue for the cash register, counting the people ahead, their multiple carts, and groaning.

"Can I ask you something?" I gauge his attention off the family of five with the puny kids insisting on pulling the trolley.

"Yeah what's up?"

I pull in a deep breath, mentally revising my statement until I realise it's not going to sound casual under the facade of however many words. "You and Marianna seem to have some kind of history, if I'm not wrong?"

Something flashes across his eyes, his hunched shoulders turning rigid and cheeks tingeing red under the luminous Walmart bulbs. "We had a thing in the past, but that's all that there is. None of us likes to talk about or bring it out now... there's no point, really." He adjusts the grip on his specks, feeling the action will hide the darkening of his eyes and the remnants of past still lingering in there, ones that were left out of this conversation.

I just nod in response. It's not that I don't believe what he's saying, it's that I have no choice to. We've been through so much and yet I feel I know so little about him, and nothing of the things that extend beyond that mischievous exterior. Although, the problem's that if I want to know, I should be willing to tell in return, and that's something I'm not sure I have learnt how to do since—"they're not mine!" A squeal out of Chase throws me head first into reality, realising we're at the billing counter now.

I look over to see what's the ordeal about, things coming to surface when I see the cashier holding a pack of tampons in her hands. He must have tossed it in while blindly stacking those pizza rolls from the unkempt box in the middle of the store. "Sir, if you want I can wrap them up in a black polythene?" She whispers, not so sly as a couple customers behind us begin looking about.