Olivia's Strange Week

Looking Over my Shoulder

The streets of Forhill are too hot this afternoon, and I feel my scalp burning under my hair. Sweat accumulates on my skin with every second passed under the sun, and my feet, covered by socks and shoes, already feel swampy. None of these sensations is worse than that tingle at the back of my head, telling me that I'm being followed. Every now and then, I turn around, finding nobody on my trail. Nobody that I notice, at least.

I'm walking on the street in the middle of the day, wind brushing my hair and the sun scorching my skin, yet I feel trapped in a tiny box that slowly shrinks. I could've taken the bus, waited at the stop just in front of the school for just a few minutes, and then get home quickly, but if things were this bad now, how would I feel in what was basically a metal box? Not only that, I'd be trapped with dozens of other people, with a driver I couldn't trust to take me to safety. That would've been unbearable. As things stood, this wasn't any good either, but at least I had total control over my own movement

Still, I could do without the heat.

Across the street, I see through half-lidded eyes the huge red sign of Super Cash, the supermarket that's closest to my apartment. Some taxis are parked on the edge of that street, hungry to transport any client overburdened with their groceries. This is where I buy my bakery ingredients, as well as most food I consume.

I stop on my tracks, had I refilled my fridge recently? There were a few things left after I'd devoured all those brownies on Friday, but since then two days had gone by with Emily hanging out in my apartment, add to that today's breakfast and I wasn't sure I'd reach home and not have to go out to buy food immediately after.

My head turns back. I observe the street, the people walking on it. Behind me is a blonde, long-haired woman in a business suit, too distracted talking on her phone to watch her step. On the other side of the street, diagonal to Super Cash, there is a mother with a straw hat and a summer dress full of blotches and lines of color, all weaving and blurring together, who's pushing a buggy with her infant child inside. Following closely behind is a couple, consisting of one girl a little bit lower in height than me, and a giant dude that easily doubles her size. Does anybody look familiar? Not really, just normal people going about their normal lives. Or so they seem.

I try to memorize their most remarkable features, then I enter Super Cash, alert of any followers. It is a pretty large place, divided into dozens and dozens of aisles, the amount of space not surrounded with products on both sides is pretty small, and thus navigating the supermarket is pretty awkward. Grabbing a cart, I make my way to the breakfast aisle. There are hundreds of different brands of cookies, chocolate chips, cream-filled, sprinkled with sugar... I stare at the great variety, struggling to decide. In the end, I just choose the top three and load them into my cart. I take the opportunity to load on some jam as well

On the far end of the corridor, there is a narrow hallway where all the aisles join. Along that hallway, there are dozens of fridges, some filled with meats, others with cheeses and milk, some even with cakes! Sadly, I don't have the money for the latter, so I just grab a few bottles of strawberry milk, some cream cheese, and a few frozen steaks.

I turn around. My whole body does a little jump when I see the office lady, still talking on her phone, analyzing the other end of the breakfast aisle with far too much enthusiasm for someone who's not bothering to grab anything. Is she following me? I don't want to think so. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. After all, she was coming behind me, it wouldn't be strange if she was doing shopping in one of the few supermarkets in Forhill. But then the images of Belinda, hugging my legs to prevent me from escaping, of Emily, who didn't dare say anything when I mentioned the White Maidens, they flash before my eyes and every part of my body tenses in alert. My hands grip the handle of the cart like it's a rope keeping me from falling to a cliff.