Chapter 14
Ellary
Someone is watching me.
I glance at the end of the aisle as a woman with a nearly overflowing cart hustles past me, smiling apologetically as I move out of her way.
But my gaze returns to the end of the aisle, where I’m almost positive someone was watching me. Not the woman who hurried past me just now. Someone else was staring with a focused intensity that felt like fingers running up and down the back of my neck.
Abandoning my shopping cart and the pasta I want but can never reach, at least for the moment, I walk to the end of the aisle and peer right, then left.
Everyone is busy with their weekly grocery shopping.
No one is paying attention to me. Not a single person is interested in me.
My vibrating cell phone pulls my attention from my surroundings, and I fish it from my small brown leather crossbody purse, smiling when I see who it is and knowing the first question my sister will ask me.
“What are you wearing?” she demands.
I laugh. “You sound like a stalker,” I say with a smile, returning to my cart.
I hear her eye roll down the phone. “Shut up. But seriously. You haven’t been on a date in forever, so you need something cute yet sexy.”
I glance at the pasta I want, sigh, and settle for the one beneath it. They all taste the same, right?
“It’s not that serious,” I tell my sister, tossing the box into my cart and continuing down the aisle.
What else do I need?
“He’s a hot doctor. It could end up being very serious.”
“I don’t know about that.” A box of chocolate donuts gets tossed into my cart. I don’t need them, but they’re there and I skipped out on breakfast when I know better than to shop when I’m hungry.
Saturdays were always lazy mornings for Jackson and me. We’d make love, then eat a few bites of cereal or scrambled eggs and bacon, and I’d prod Jackson to get moving before the store got too crazy.
He’d grumble about hating grocery shopping, but he’d always insist on coming with me even when I told him he didn’t have to.
We’d spend a couple of hours shopping, then stop at a restaurant for lunch, with all our frozen food in coolers in the trunk so it wouldn’t spoil while we took our time eating and chatting about the house projects we wanted to get done when we got home.
I miss it.
“You’re not listening to me, are you?”
Shaking off my moroseness, I continue pushing my cart through the busy grocery store, my head starting to pound from the repetitive music they always play over the sound system. “Of course I am.”
“What did I just say?” Lila demands.
“Heels and a dress for the date.”
She snorts, then laughs. “That was just a lucky guess.”
I join the shortest line at the cash register to pay. “No, it wasn’t.”
But it was.
I’m still not sure about this date with the handsome doctor, but I talked it over with my sister and my parents, and they all said, “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Why not test the waters of starting a new life that doesn’t include Jackson?
Maybe this date with the doctor won’t go anywhere, but I can’t remember the last time I did something fun.
The last few days have involved working and trying to get excited about the baby while simultaneously being terrified that something will go wrong, even though my scan revealed everything was fine.
Then there was the not-so-small matter of spewing my guts every five minutes with a case of morning sickness so bad it’s a miracle I kept anything down.
“Mind wandered off again, huh?” Lila’s amused voice returns me to the present.
As the cashier finishes bagging the groceries of the man in front of me, I tuck my cell phone against my shoulder and start placing my items on the conveyor. “Just nervous, I guess. The last time I went out on a date was with Jackson. Before that… well… you know.”
“It’s just fun, Ellie. There’s no expectation that you marry the guy or even see him again. He seemed nice, and you need something fun to look forward to.”
“I guess.” The cashier smiles at me and begins scanning my groceries as I say into the phone, “I’ll call you back, Lila. They’re bagging my groceries now, and I need to pay.”
“Call right back. I mean it. Literally straight away. No talking yourself out of this date either.”
“Okay.” I smile and hang up, passing my reusable shopping bags to the cashier instead of using the plastic ones the store provides.
Once I’ve paid for my groceries, I reach for my phone when I’m back in my car with the groceries in the trunk.
I didn’t get that much, but I was rubbing my sore lower back as I returned to my car after pushing my cart to the nearest cart corral in the store’s parking lot.
“So, are you going to do it?” Lila asks when I’m sitting behind the wheel of my car with the key in the ignition.
I hadn’t intended to call Clayton about the date.
If I hadn’t been in such a good mood when I called my sister up after the scan went well, and then we’d all gathered at my parents' house to stare at the scan, I might have shrugged off meeting Clayton as something not meant to be.
But Lila pulled more details out of me, and my parents were excited about me going out and having fun.
They saw me at my lowest of lows, curled up on the couch in their living room, refusing to leave the house, barely eating, crying all the time for a week.
I should have spent that week celebrating a pregnancy they know I’ve wanted for years. Instead, I spent it grieving the end of my marriage.
“Ellie,” Lila says, serious. “You need to start living again.”
I let out a sigh. “Okay. Dress and heels it is.”
“I’ll be over in twenty minutes to help you pick something out.”
She hangs up before I can tell her not to bother, but I’m smiling as I tuck my phone into my purse and start the engine.
I guess I’m dating now.