Defining Love

Bell Peppers

 Sunny walked down the aisles of the grocery store for the third time, her basket still as empty as it had been when she first picked it up.  Her eyes had been locked on her fuzzy pink slippers gliding over the speckled white tiles, and not at all on what she might want for dinner.  

 She looked at her reflection in the metal lining the wall behind the vegetables in the produce section.  

"I'm a mess," she croaked, the sound of her own voice bringing her close to tears again.  Her mousy brown hair was tied up in a bun that had been there so long, the wisps had swallowed the ponytail holder and any hopes of retrieving it would either require scissors or a lot of pain.  The bags under her eyes were just about as designer as the sweatpants she'd bought on sale at Target, and there was more cat hair on her sweater than actual wool.  

 She leaned farther over the bell peppers and pulled the worry-lines between her eyebrows flat.  "What is that?" she murmured.  She prodded a dark freckle on her cheek underneath her eye and leaned even closer to the reflective wall, and it was then that the sprinklers came on. "Woah!" she gasped.

 Her piggy slippers didn't provide the most traction, and down she fell, pulling about a hundred bell peppers with her.  She sat on the floor and let all of the emotion and vitamin C wash over.  Her bottom lip quivered, her already rubbed raw eyes stung, and she cried in the middle of Trader Joe's.  It wasn't a delicate sniffle either.  Sunny McLaren was having a full on breakdown in the produce section.  

 "If you want all of these you'll need a bigger basket."

 Sunny looked up to see a handsome young man offering her a hand up.

  "C'mon, I'm afraid I can't let you stay down there unless you start paying rent," he jested. He offered her his hand again.  She sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve, then grabbed his hand and pulled herself up.

 Squish.

 "Oh god," she moaned.  Sunny didn't even have to look down to realize she had stepped on a pepper standing up.  To make matters worse, the handsome young man who had witnessed her demise also happened to be an employee.

 "Don't worry about it," said the clerk, "I saw the way that pepper attacked you and if you ask me, it deserved it."

 His kindness only made Sunny feel worse.  Middle aged soccer moms had stopped their shopping to stare, and the weight of her embarrassment only got heavier when they started to whisper.  

 "Don't worry about them, or the mess," the clerk pressed.  "What's wrong?"

 Sunny could feel her cheeks steadily growing redder and redder, until she felt as if she could lie back down and blend in as a pepper herself.  "I think I might have cancer," she said pointing to the mole under her eye.  

 The clerk studied her for a moment, then to Sunny's horror, wiped the mole off her cheek and licked it off his finger. 

"Just chocolate," he said. 

 She looked down at her pulp-covered piggies and blushed, creasing her forehead in frustration.  The clerk sighed, realizing she was beyond the point of comfort.  "I have an idea," he said.  He reached down and picked up two peppers.

 More and more soccer moms and PTA members had flocked to the scene, and weren't making any effort to hide their gawking, lip-glossed mouths.  A few even raised their manicured fingers to point at the cataclysm that was Sunny McLaren.  

 "I'll distract them, you run," he whispered.

 Sunny looked up, "What?"

 Before her question was answered, the clerk began to juggle the peppers.  "Organic flying peppers!" he cried.  "You would not believe the magical health benefits these peppers can offer!"

 Kids crawled out from their seats in the carts and leapt to catch the peppers.

 "Toss me another one!  And one more!" the clerk smiled.

 Kids tossed vegetables and their mothers swooned, and Sunny snuck right out the door, completely forgotten.

...

Meow.   

Meow.

Meoooow.

 "I'm sorry Kiska," Sunny said, pushing the whiny cat away from the door and then locking it behind her.  "If you had been there you'd understand.  I'll go back to the store tomorrow."  Kiska continued to meow.

 Sunny walked through the cluttered kitchen, through the living room piled with books, and into her nest.  Sunny didn't like to call it a bedroom since the whole thing looked more like a bird nest than a human's living area.  

 Fishing line strung with crystals and charms hung in the windows casting opalescent light fragments across the walls.  The floor was barely visible, not because her nest was messy, but because she had piled various pillows, blankets, and rugs all around the room to make it as comfortable as possible which was necessary since she would often spend days at a time locked away to do her writing.  The walls were just as cluttered; a watercolor poster of different types of carrots and turnips hung over her bed, and different hand-dyed silks, dreamcatchers, and her own paintings hung on the other walls.  

 She flopped on her bed and wrapped herself up in a quilt.

 Kiska was relentless and hopped up next to her.  Meow.

 "I promise I'll go back tomorrow," Sunny sighed, "I should probably pay for those peppers..."

 Sunny's mind wandered back to the incident at the grocery store and a hint of red touched her cheeks once more; but this time, not from embarrassment.She remembered the kind forrest green eyes that smiled down at her.  

 She remembered the freckles on his cheeks over a genuine smile.  She remembered the reddish-brown hair worn long on the top and short on the sides, and the unruly way it looked effortlessly tussled, carefree and soft like him.

 Meow.

  "I know," replied Sunny.  She wasn't sure, but Sunny thought Kiska must've been warning her.  "Be careful with your heart this time," is what the little snowball would've said if she could talk.  Sunny was sure of it.  The small white Scottish Fold had been with Sunny through August, Steve, and Adam, patiently waiting while Sunny healed.  Her advice was valuable.

 But still, the heart wants what it wants.  Any young author would know.  So Sunny stayed on her bed, twisting her ash blonde hair and stroking Kiska, thinking about the handsome young clerk as the sun set and the crystal light danced.