fall
by Julia
The one that was going was saying, the one that was glowing, the one that was going was saying then, I am content, you are not content, I am content you are not content, I am content, you are not content, you are content, I am content.
Gertrude Stein, from “Storyette, H.M.” 1914
i. highlighter.
That was all it was all night, lifting stacking sorting boxes. Now, at the end of the beginning of the school year, notebooks and folders, emblazoned with the latest teen sensation, began to be replaced by aisles littered with the indulgence of Halloween. First JC, then Justin had been assigned to checkout, wearing red t-shirts with the supermarket logo proclaiming that yes, that was their Giant, but soon enough the manager’s watchful eyes saw the way the eyes of girls and boys would stray from the magazine racks and candy displays and linger on lips and broad shoulders when either of them was at his post.
So instead they worked out of the sight and minds of the soccer moms and field hockey girls in their too-carefully selected practice ensembles. For Justin, that was more than acceptable. Row upon row of boxes designated for aisle upon aisle of consumer consumption was orderly and simple, and allowed him space to think, an increasingly valuable commodity of late.
He rubbed his hands beneath the rusted faucet. He always used blue, but on his skin, the transparent ink was a murky brown. He wanted it off, and soon. Recently, he’d been stopping by the store to collect himself, between classes, at lunch, and this day was no exception. How was he supposed to shake hands with the recruiters, their false smiles kept wide only by the thickness of their wallets against their hips, if he couldn’t get this fucking highlighter off of—
The other’s face appeared in the mirror of the small employee bathroom, his features distorted by the warped glass. The soft splash of water had hidden his approach, and still it streamed into the drain. Off. Justin twisted the knob and dragged his stained hands over the smooth ceramic. They were red and raw from rubbing, and the cold was sharp on swollen fingertips.
“Here.” No matter how dirty JC got stacking inventory in the back of the store, he always had a pristine towel shoved into the torn back pocket of his jeans. Opening the folded cotton, he carefully covered the bruised hands of the taller boy whose eyes remained invisible. Just lashes.
“Late night?” JC asked, his implied knowledge of Justin’s solitary evening thick in his voice. He knew that the answer was what he wanted to hear.
“Does it look like I was enjoying myself?” Silence. “Fucking chemistry.”
Justin’s eyes darted up from his hands, still enveloped in the soft fabric JC had offered, to meet the eyes of the other. He couldn’t allow them to set for too long, or a pattern could be formed. A bad habit he couldn’t break. So he let the eyes trail down, over cheeks pink with effort and a worn white t-shirt, let them flicker shut again.
Fucking chemistry, indeed.
