Displaced

Chevelle - Two

The mall I worked at was big. No, huge. Then again, it was also the biggest mall in America at the time. With an amusement park in the center, an aquarium underneath, it was near impossible to be bored for the sake of people-watching alone. It was also a pain in the butt to work there, let me tell you. During the slow season, It. Was. Slow. The store would get two customers an hour, if we were lucky, and fighting for hours was like being in a death match inside of a steel cage. All of the employees wanted to work, but there wasn't much to go around. On the flip side, the busy season was essentially a nightmare on earth. Finding parking was the pits, nobody knew where they're going, there were a lot more tourists, and everyone was crabby.

Fall was part of the slow season, so I was fully prepared for a long Saturday afternoon doing homework behind the counter. I hung up my coat and clocked in, taking the time to see who I'd be hanging out with for the day.

"Hopefully, it's someone who will let me work in peace," I mumbled as I flipped through the calendar on the back wall of the employee's only room. A loud groan comes from out of me when I read the name on the sheet. "Wicken."

"That's my name, don't wear it out," he said as he walked behind me to punch in on the computer. "I don't know if I should be insulted or not because I thought you'd miss me after all of the fun we had this summer."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, listening to you gab on and on about your conquests for twenty hours a week is my idea of a great summer vacation."

"I detect sarcasm in your tone, and I realize that's only because you're jealous but won't admit to it." He walked by me again on his way out to the main floor of the store. As he passed me, he placed a hand on the small of my back to signal just how close he was to me.

This wasn't anything out of the ordinary. In fact, it happened all the time. Everyone in the store did it at one point in time or another because it was a common courtesy to help prevent accidents. But I didn't like it when Wicken touched me, or rather, I liked it, but I didn't like that I liked it. Arrogance had always been a huge turn-off for me, but when he wasn't being a cocky doorknob, Wicken was tolerable, enjoyable even. Those were the moments where I thought about him as potential boyfriend material. Then he opened his mouth and reminded me why he was on my list of people to avoid.

With a soft huff, I followed him out to the floor. "I call register."

"Ugh, are you going to read the whole time again?" He unlocked the store and lifted the gate. Not like there was anyone around waiting to get in.

I nodded at him. "I have one-hundred pages of Asian theology to read by Monday. It's not easy, so it takes five times as long as a normal book."

"What the heck am I supposed to do while you're reading?"

"Dust, organize, play on your phone, I don't care." I pulled out my text book and placed it discretely on the counter.

He put out a few cardboard displays and set up some of the toys near the gate to demo before joining me behind the counter. "What is a Bodhisattva?"

"I don't know," I mumbled. "Can you please not read over my shoulder?"

"Come on, tell me about school. You were so excited to go in August. Is it living up to your expectations? I need to live vicariously through you." Wicken pushed my book off to the side. His fingers tapped on the cheap wood countertop surrounding the registers.

I turned to face him and shrugged. "It's a lot harder than I was expecting it to be. My roommate goes to bed at ten, so I have to spend a lot of my night not in my room. Someone messed up my load of laundry, so I have a bunch of teal undershirts now, and I got stuck taking a lot of classes that are filled with seniors and juniors." Then, as an afterthought I added, "The food is good."