Chapter Two
I woke up with a hangover and a sense of dread.
The former was my own fault, of course. Sneaking back into the lounge when my parents had gone to bed, and working my way through the bottle of peach schnapps they seemed to think was essential to achieving festive spirit.
Drinking past the point where I could tell myself it was casual; tempting fate for the headache of all headaches from cheap liquor and an excess of sugar.
At the time, though, it’d meant I could put off the dread until the morning.
Fear of what Flynn and I had discussed, what he now knew of me. Fear of how I’d spoken to him; of the untempered frustration I’d allowed myself to show. And, inextricably woven through all that - like a syrup of poison, slow moving but inescapable - the fear of how he might retaliate.
I should’ve lied, even if it would’ve been unbelievable, the excuses tissue-thin.
Told him he’d misheard; done my best to gaslight him into thinking the cringeworthy porn dialog was something different.
Flipped it around on him, even: asked Flynn just what sort of perverted stuff he’d been watching, in order to mistake those innocent words for something so obscene.
Instead, he’d flustered me - my cock still hard despite the shock, stuffed back into my precum-slicked briefs - and I’d done the thing I’d spent years sidestepping.
Spilled the truth, and made myself vulnerable in the process.
Because while Flynn was undoubtedly thinking ahead to whenever he might be leaving, my future was pinned to this tiny, frustrating little town.
I opened the curtains and felt a surge of annoyance that his car was still there. Weirdly, that feeling proved more capable of keeping my hangover nausea at arm’s length than the black coffee did.
#
A stack of garbage bags leaned precariously against the door of the thrift store, already waist height. Gingerly - there was a roughly fifty-fifty chance that they were donations rather than actual trash - I moved them to the side, so that I could reach the lock.
The holidays always brought an uptick in drop-offs, though I’d quickly learned that it was less about charity and more about people hoping physical cleaning would make them feel mentally lighter in the new year.
That explained the stained pillow cases and broken appliances; toys with obvious parts missing; and books with scrawled notes escaping the margins and roaming across the text itself.
Chipped plates and mugs with handles long gone, wadded in with clothes that were more hole than fabric, or stiff with old deodorant.
Ninety percent of it all would go in the trash, into the dumpster at the back of the store.
That, we kept locked, lest even the one-in-10 items worth saving just get tossed in there.
Even if doing so would mean people missed out on the flicker of “I did a good thing” from plopping a Hefty bag on our front step.
It made you cynical - made me cynical - or so my friend Catherine told me.
Such an obvious demonstration of people’s capacity for self-deception, day-in, day-out: their eagerness to deem themselves “a good person,” as though it didn’t matter what you stacked upon Anubis’ scale, trash or treasure, just as long as it outweighed the feather on the other side.
The tube lights buzzed into life, seeming to stir the familiar, musty smell of the store.
It wasn’t depressing, I told Catherine, because you got to see the upside in the aisles and at the register. The people who needed a winter coat but couldn’t afford new; the parents desperate for toys, without the budget for even the cheapest offerings in the discount store.
The realities of poverty, punctuated by the occasional glimmer of what - if you squinted - you could see as hopeful.
Like the person last summer in girl’s clothes, hair chopped short, nervously draping an armful of men’s pants and shirts across the counter, expression as fearful as it was challenging.
I’d tried to smile, nodded to the tiny cubicle that was our changing room and said anyone was welcome to try on whatever they liked.
A jerky shake of the head in response, and a few dollars still damp from a hand’s sweat, and that was the only time I saw them.
Left hoping they’d found whatever they’d needed, anyway, both on the cluttered rails of a small town thrift store, and broader still.
Those moments seemed enough, most of the time, to offset the two pairs of gloves and the stink of unwashed donations. And anyway, it was a job. You took the good times with the bad.
I was working my way through the second bag when the door chimed and the bad walked in.
It was meant to look like a casual outfit, I figured; Flynn’s idea of hometown chic.
Maybe he’d been gone too long, or maybe the echoes of the price tag on his peacoat were just too loud to ignore.
The hoodie layered underneath too crisply perfect: not stretched out at the front, or bearing some half-faded logo across the chest to betray its age.
Even his sweatpants screamed money, the gray fabric hanging in a way that those on the $9. 99 rail simply couldn’t match.
A rich person’s idea of dressing-down. Laughable, really, among aisles where a fifty-fifty cotton and polyester mix was considered luxurious.
He glanced around as he walked toward the counter. “Quiet, isn’t it?”
I shrugged. “It’s the holidays.”
Flynn nodded, slowly. Looked around again. “You working on your own today?”
“It’s the holidays,” I repeated.
He made a face, just briefly. I wasn’t sure if it was from the reminder of the time of year, or my coldness.
“I might just look around,” he suggested.
It was tempting to roll my eyes, but I didn’t. “That’s how it works, yeah,” I said, blandly.
A sensible man - one still with the churning belly of someone who’d spent the morning terrified his biggest secret would get spread around - would’ve been polite, the voice at the back of my head told me.
Friendly, even; all the better to casually bring up the revelations of the night before, and drop a few “I’d hate for people to find out before I’m ready” hints.
There was just something about him which rubbed me the wrong way, though. And so I quietly seethed behind the counter instead.
“Is there something you’re actually looking for?” I called out, finally, when he’d slowly worked his way down one aisle and was turning into the next.
Flynn looked up. “I thought it’d be kinda like a vintage store, y’know?”
I snorted. “You think the people here are donating that sort of stuff?”
He had the good grace to at least look slightly sheepish.
It wasn’t entirely a bad assumption, not really. Occasionally, very occasionally, we’d get something actually special: a designer label that had inexplicably ended up in our backwater, or an antique worth something. According to the people at head office, I was better than most at spotting them.
“Most shoppers are more motivated by price and longevity, than they are fashion,” I said, instead of explaining that. “We can’t all afford thousand-dollar coats.”
Apparently he was going to ignore my sarcasm.
Instead, he picked up a shirt, holding it to his chest. Red and black plaid; what my mom would call “one for good ole boys.” Flynn looked up at me, expectantly.
“What do you think?”
I shrugged. “It’s probably warm.”
He nodded slowly, as if I’d said something exceptionally wise. Kept sifting through the rail, like one discovery automatically made others more likely.
It wasn’t like I forgot he was there. You learned a sort of second-sense, working retail, always aware of someone browsing. But the silence was lulling, and I buried myself in sifting through the trash bags and making one small pile of what was worth keeping.
So engrossed, I flinched when Flynn dumped his armful of stuff on the countertop.
I stood, pulling off the gloves as I surveyed his haul.
The red and black shirt he’d found first was there, but a black polo, too, plus a tweedy sort of jacket that I had strong suspicions had come the shop’s way after its original wearer headed to the cemetery.
Then again, it wasn’t a surprise to our clientele that they often left sporting dead people’s clothes.
“You need to try any of it on?”
Flynn frowned. “Is that okay?”
It was another chance to show great restraint, given rolling my eyes would’ve been perfectly understandable. I gestured at the little cubicle. “Five items at a time, is the rule.”
He nodded, then gathered everything up again in his arms.
I’d left the radio off, having had my fill of Christmas music, and so I could hear him moving around behind the curtain. After a minute or two, it swished open.
“Is there a...” he started.
I pointed at the mirror.
Frankly, it was galling how good Flynn made a cheap, second-hand polo shirt look.
The sleeves short on his arms, doing nothing to hide the biceps that I could just tell were the handiwork of some three-figure personal training sessions.
He’d always been tall, but he’d filled out over the years, too.
Shoulders wide, the black cotton stretched taut across them.
“Is it too tight?” He called over his shoulder.
I looked down, not wanting to have been caught watching. “We don’t do a choice of sizes,” I reminded him, “what you see is what we’ve got.”
Flynn nodded, then started pulling the shirt off as he stepped back into the cubicle.
Checked shirt next, and some sly part of my brain pointed out that he probably wasn’t what my mom had in mind as a “good ole boy.”
“Does it look ridiculous, or something?”
I glanced up, realizing Flynn was staring at me in the mirror. Shook my head. “No. I was... I was smiling about something else.”
He stared a moment longer, then nodded. Unbuttoning the shirt even before he was back in the little booth, a brief glimpse of bare shoulders before I turned away.
A few minutes later, dressed again in his own clothes, he dropped the pile back on the counter.
I nudged the stetson, flicking him a skeptical look. “Seriously?”
Flynn grinned. “Getting ahead of the trends.”
Shaking my head, I rang him up.
“You take cards, right?”
I didn’t bother hiding my disdain, for that one. “No, only barter. This’ll set you back three ducks, or a quarter sheep.” I pushed the card machine across the counter. “Of course we do.”
He blushed, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “I just...” Flynn shook his head, giving up. “Want to round it up? Like, as a donation?”
If he wanted me to gush, and declare him our most generous benefactor, he’d be sorely mistaken. Not that I was going to reject the offer: we were, after all, a charity.
“Thanks,” I said, flatly, punching the total into the little machine. “You want a bag?”
He nodded, and so I ducked down to pull out one of the mismatched plastic bags we kept under the register.
If Flynn thought I was going to neatly fold his purchases, like it was some sort of fancy boutique, that was his mistake.
Instead, I held the bag open, until he got the message and scooped everything bar the stupid hat inside.
I handed him the receipt, and waited for him to leave.
He watched me, a little longer. As if wondering if I was going to say something first, the crease between his eyes deepening.
“Look,” Flynn said, finally, “about last night.”
“Nothing to talk about,” I said quickly, shaking my head.
The crease turned into a frown. “But...”
His argument was interrupted by the door chiming. We both turned, instinctively, to see a harried-looking young woman usher in a couple of pre-teen kids. They looked unimpressed.
“Kids’ clothes?” she called out, across the store.
I pointed at the right rail. “It’s all there.”
She nodded, and then continued her herding.
Flynn was staring at me, when I turned back to him. Pointedly, I nudged the bag across the counter.
“Oli...”
I shook my head. “I have to serve other customers.”
He glanced around us, equally pointedly, at the nearly-empty store. Then, just as it seemed like he might call me out on my terrible excuse, he sighed and grabbed the bag.
“Fine, dude. Fine. Have a good day.”
Nodding, I waited until the door had shut behind him, before sinking down behind the counter to shove my hand in my mouth in the hope of stifling my groan.
It was the coward’s way out, but worse than that knowledge, it also left me no better off than when I’d woken up. The paranoia - the uncertainty about Flynn’s intentions with my secret - still unchecked, only now I had the added benefit of one further layer of regret on top of that.
“Please don’t tell anybody,” that was all I’d needed to say. “I’m not ready for it to be public knowledge, yet,” maybe. And, unless Flynn was a complete and utter asshole, I felt sure they were the sort of entreaties that he’d listen to.
Only I wasn’t sure it would end there, not really.
Perhaps that’d been what stopped me, the fear of what I’d have automatically gone on to say, had I tried to call upon his better nature.
I’m not ready to be out, yet, but I’m also not as strong as you are.
Not as prepared to leave, even if this narrow-minded town is forcing me to hide myself until my life feels tissue-thin.
Not as brave as you are, or as smart, or as lucky to have those qualities.
He’d see the resentment in my request, I was sure of it. Even voiced only in my own brain, it rang out loud and clear.
“Uh, excuse me?”
The woman from before, with the kids. Leaning over the counter, to look at me in my crouch on the floor.
Awkwardly, I stood. Bringing a stack of nearly-sorted clothes with me, as if to explain why I was squatting there so oddly.
“Sorry,” I told her, “just, um... working through the donations.” I set the pile down. “Did you find everything you wanted?”
“I guess.” She grimaced, as she dumped a heap of kid’s clothes by the register. “We’re not exactly spoiled for choice around here, y’know.”
Yeah, I thought, as I nodded in what I hoped looked like sympathy, I know that feeling well.