My Rose

4. Rose

Chapter 4

Rose

“...indiscretion has its charms; it's boring to fit one's face to reputation.” ― Sulpicia

A bell rang above my head as I walked through the swinging glass door. Jim, the man who owned the gas station and notoriously sold alcohol to minors because he couldn’t be bothered to check an ID, stood idly behind the counter, flipping through a comic book that had a half-naked woman on the cover. He inclined his head, pulling his gaze from the pages momentarily as I waved at him. The entire store could be robbed, kegs thrown into trucks and hauled away and the register depleted of all funds and the man still wouldn’t budge an inch. Maybe it was the shotgun that hung along the wall behind him that granted him such confidence—believing those things would never happen as he ignored the world.

But I knew for a fact that if it was my store I’d at least mop the floors once a day.

The soles of my shoes made clicking sounds each time I lifted my feet from the sticky floors as I made my way toward the freezer doors along the back wall. It was still dark outside, the tell-tale signs of winter settling in, and in another week or so the stores in Shuster Springs would have limited operation hours. But Jim would still be here, making his store one of the most reliable even if the milk had to be inspected thoroughly before I’d settle on a half-gallon from the shelf.

“Does it smell okay?” I pulled the milk away from my nose, turning my head slowly over my shoulder. Briggs was two freezer doors down from where I stood sniffing the caps of milk jugs to make sure the dates weren’t altered on the sides. I was so deep into analyzing the dates of each jug that I hadn’t heard the bell ring again after I’d entered the store. Or did he get here before I did and I just hadn’t noticed?

I made some weird noise between a yeah and a uhuh and nodded, my cheeks heating in embarrassment as he pulled out a water bottle. Briggs’ white shirt clung to his skin along his chest, his cut-off sleeves dipping down to his waist where more tattoos peeked out from underneath the fabric as they continued from his arms down the length of his back and sides. I glanced over to Jim, head still bent down over his comics, and lowered my voice. “Honestly, I don’t really trust the stuff here.”

“You mean, you don’t trust Jim’s Stuff?” The corner of his mouth tilted up, revealing the hint of a dimple on his left cheek. The store was, in fact, called ‘Jim’s Stuff.’ It resembled the amount of effort Jim gave towards life, which was minimal at best. Why he kept the store open during the winter time was truly the oddest thing. Almost as odd as the way Briggs’ entire appearance didn’t exactly scream, I can tell a joke, yet he’d done so more than once now.

I giggled. “Was that a joke?” I settled on the jug I was holding and closed the glass door, making the beer bottles along the bottom shelf rattle. Briggs ran his fingers through his damp hair, then opened the water bottle and lifted it to his lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed along with each sip and I tried not to stare, but not many guys looked quite as…defined, as Briggs Andrews. Every curve and angle of his body appeared sculpted like a piece of ancient Roman artwork, even down to the edges of where a sharp line of muscle cut from his waist down to the top of his shorts. If I didn’t know for a fact that he was real, I’d reach out to try to touch him just to see if he had, in fact, been sculpted to perfection out of a skin-tone clay or cut from some tan stone. It was something I didn’t notice entirely at the theater the other night because it was dark, and he had more clothes on. August was at the forefront of my mind that night, not Briggs, whom I hadn’t seen since the early years of high school. But standing in front of him, watching as a small bead of water escaped his mouth and moved down his neck was almost…pornographic.

My throat turned dry like every cell in my body decided I needed that drop of water he let escape his lips. The one that I was still watching as it fell slowly to meet the collar of his shirt.

He capped the bottle and chuckled faintly. “Yeah, I guess it was.” He lifted the bottle in the air towards Jim, who through some form of psychic connection lifted his head and gave him a thumbs up from behind the register. Jim put his comic down and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen, jotting something down quickly before returning to his comics. Was that a tab? Briggs had a tab with Jim?

I ignored it, because it wasn’t my business, whatever that was. I gave a very weak, very delayed laugh, and he raised his brow as he took another sip. Then, he took a step back. “Right, well.”

I don’t quite know why I wanted to keep talking to him, but something about him was different, yet also familiar beyond having shared the one class that might as well have been ages ago. Briggs’ heel started to turn until I blurted, “Aren’t you cold in that? Do you want my jacket?” Does he want my jacket? My hands worked like I was on fire, unzipping my jacket until he held up his hand, making me stop and zip it back up again. I looked down at the zipper as it grazed up past my breasts, realizing I only had a lacy bra on underneath the jacket. More heat flushed along my cheeks and spread down my neck.

Really hope he didn’t see that.

“Thanks, but I’ll be okay.” He pinched his shirt, snapping the fabric away from his chest. “I’m actually kind of hot at the moment.” Yeah, I’d say. I let my eyes drift slowly down over the length of his arms, paying too much attention to the images that were inked over the sharp cut of his muscles. His arms crossed over his chest, drawing my attention back to his face, which was now smirking knowingly right at me.

My voice was weak as I asked, “Was that another joke?” Oh fuck. More word vomit. I didn’t want him to think I was hitting on him, but that’s exactly what it sounded like I was doing. But that wasn’t what I was doing at all. Nope. I was only interested, pathetically enough, in my best friend. Right?

I mentally scorned my raging hormones as his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion like he wasn’t sure if he should keep talking to the girl who took everything he said as a joke. I looked nervously over at Jim, whose head was so bent over his comic that his nose almost touched the open pages.

“Me being hot? Oh, um…no. I just ran five miles.” He took another sip of water, then inclined the bottle towards me. “Makes me a little…” thirsty. He hesitated, appearing to contemplate yet another innuendo I didn’t need running through my depraved head. “I needed water,” he answered definitively.

“You just ran five miles for no reason?” Of course, he had a reason. Which was more than I could say about my incessant rambling to a guy I shared one class and one movie with. But my closest friend that wasn’t August had gone off to college, and August continued to ignore me. Maybe my grandfather was right. Maybe I did need new friends .

“Exercising helps me think. Clears my mind when…well”—His eyes darkened and fell to the freezers behind me for a split second—“it just clears it.” I knew that look, even if it only lasted for a few moments. It was grief—the deep agony of wishing others were still with you, wishing they were still around to talk to or be with. A memory of a news article in our high school paper flashed through my mind, one about the twin brother I saw maybe once in the hallways before… oh shit .

It wasn’t just an article. It was an obituary.

Another memory took root and spread, one of ash and smoke that clawed into my throat. My gaze fell to my shoes which were glued to the floor in more ways than one as I tried to push the memory back into the tightly woven box I learned to construct in therapy and only unpacked late at night when everything could be analyzed properly. By the time I lifted my head again, Briggs was gone.

I frowned.

I couldn’t blame him. I was rambling too much and he saw an out when I looked down at my shoes for what was probably two whole minutes.

I made my way to Jim and paid for the milk, not at all expecting him to open a tab for me as I walked up to the counter and fished out a few dollar bills. I didn’t necessarily need a tab. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich, either. I wondered exactly how well-off or well-liked Briggs had to be to get a tab under his name—if that was what that exchange with Jim was earlier. But as I pushed my few bills toward Jim along the counter, he pushed them right back.

“Keep it,” he said as he bagged the milk.

“I can pay,” I replied, pushing the bills back, slightly annoyed. As he refused, pushing the bagged milk and the money back, I snapped. “Is it free milk and water day or something?”

He scratched along his patchy beard and opened his comic up once more. “Sure. We can call it that.”

I scoffed and eyed the tip jar on the counter. “Fine.” I took the money and stuffed it into the empty jar.

He glanced at the jar, then back at me, and rolled his eyes. I should’ve rolled mine right back at him—the audacity alone in having a tip jar on the counter at a convenience store.

“Have a great day,” he added, smiling from behind his comic and waving his fingers at me. It took everything in me to refrain from raising my single finger right back at him and telling him where to shove it with that sly look on his face before I decidedly left the store.

The sun was finally rising above the early morning clouds on the walk back to my grandparents’ house— my house . It was still hard to grasp that I didn’t stay at their house because of some extended family sleepover. It was my home now, too. They’d done nothing but welcome me with open arms since my parents died, and I couldn’t even call it my home after fifteen years of living there. Yet, a raw feeling spread over me each time it came out of my mouth.

Home .

Like a wound I wasn’t sure would ever fully scab over and heal.

The lit porch guided me from the end of the long stretch of road all the way to our small cul-de-sac, or our little sliver of heaven, as my grandmother called it. I made sure to flip the switch off when I came in, signaling I was no longer out, and put my shoes into the basket left by the door. It was one of the many silent conversations we’d grown used to. Something that stuck around from the first months after I’d moved in with my grandparents. My therapist said it was normal to lose your voice after a traumatic event, and I’d adjust to speaking again once the memories of that night weren’t so vivid in my mind. To this day, my memories remain just as vivid, yet my voice fought through and eventually came back anyway.

Where there were signals of my own meant just for them, they, too, had created their methods of communicating—Post-It notes, like the one on the door frame as I walked into the kitchen.

Went out with friends for breakfast and mahjong. We might be gone awhile. See you later, honey!

xoxo

The trip to the store this morning was for them because they couldn’t wait for me to return home from work later with milk to go with their coffee, but I guess I’d taken too long, and they’d decided to go out instead. I sighed and took the milk out from the brown paper bag and placed it inside the fridge, tucking it between containers full of leftovers with more Post-Its telling me one was my lunch, and the next was my dinner resting below it in the second container. Another Post-It clung to the edge of a pan that was left out on the stove—

Breakfast .

I shut the fridge door, balled the bag up in my hands, and walked over to the trash bin. As I released it, I noticed black streaks along one of the folded, crumpled grooves—swooping black marks that became clearer when I retrieved the bag and unfurled it. ‘Briggs’ was scribbled neatly along the side, followed by ten numbers underneath.

I paused for a moment, my hands trying to catch up with my mind. Part of me reasoned that it was just a number and I should be adding that number to my phone’s contacts just in case. But another, larger part of me—the part that oddly sounded like August Coleman shouting in my ear—said to trash it. To forget about it, because I’d chased August for years and that had to be respected and not just forgotten. That conflicting voice countered that perhaps Briggs was only being friendly. He wasn’t being forceful about it—more of a choice or a suggestion than anything.

And that very small, barely-there, whispering voice in my head is what made me take out my phone and save his number.