23. Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
Now
After an afternoon of following Theo around a job site, my feet encased in new, cheap, comfy sneakers, we get in the truck and head back to Amity. I may be fifty dollars poorer than I was this morning; even so, I’m feeling better than I have in days. Maybe weeks. Possibly years.
I’m a little restless, too—like now that I’ve taken this first step toward being reliant on myself, I need to take another so I don't end up back at square one. As we drive through town, I stare out the window, as if the answer is going to jump out at me.
And then, inexplicably, it does—in the form of a giant Help Wanted sign in the window of the Wilsons’ store.
“Hey.” I nudge Theo with my elbow. “Pull over there.”
His eyes follow the direction of my pointer finger. “To the Wilsons’?”
“Yeah.”
I see the moment he notices the sign. Understanding, and then trepidation, seeps into his expression. “Sass, you know that if you go in there, you’re going to see people you know.”
He’s right. It’s the one thing I’ve been avoiding since I got here. I haven’t spoken to anybody from Amity except the Hoyts and Mrs. Wilson, the three people besides Theo who were like family to me. But this town isn’t big enough to hide in forever, and if I’m going to be living here, I’ll have to face everyone eventually.
“It’s fine,” I say as Theo swings the truck around, coming to a stop at the curb.
“Hold on—”
I set my bag of clothes on the floorboard and unbuckle my seatbelt. “I’ll be right back,” I tell him as I hop out.
“Wait, Ni—”
I shut the door, muffling the second syllable of my name, and head toward the entrance. Bright red and pink flowers stand on display on either side of it. My steps falter slightly when my fingertips touch the door handle, but I recover so quickly that I’m sure nobody would have noticed—except Theo, whose eyes I can feel boring into my back.
When I pull the door open, the tinkling bell sounds exactly as I remember. I step inside and look around quickly; there’s nobody around, which gives me a second to breathe and take in the store.
For the most part, Wilson General is exactly as I remember it. Now that I’ve lived in New York, I know that it would be called a bodega there. The building has enough room for the basics—a small section of produce, four tightly packed aisles of dry groceries, and some household and personal care products crammed into the remaining spaces. There’s a fridge of milk in the corner, a chest of ice up by the register. Anyone could get by shopping here exclusively; for frills, or just a wider selection, you would have to go into Goldsboro.
I walk up to the counter, which is vacant. The cash drawer is slightly open—typical for Amity. We wouldn’t have worried about that at my family’s store, either.
“Coming!” a female voice calls out. It’s vaguely familiar, the way I suppose most voices in Amity will be, and my bravado wavers. Theo’s truck is still idling at the curb—I could run out the door, push this off another day.
But I stay where I am, hands falling into their natural position at my hips, as hurried footsteps come from one of the aisles. “Good evening,” the girl calls again. “How can I help you?”
I turn around just as she emerges, and my breath catches.
Standing in front of me, wearing the Wilsons’ signature green apron, is Sage Perry.
I can’t remember the last time I saw Sage in person, because whatever we were doing, it was completely normal and unremarkable and failed to stick in my memory. It’s not like we knew what was about to happen.
After I was separated from Theo, I talked to her on the phone a few times. Everything from those days is such a blur; I know I told her what happened, and that she tried to talk to Theo for me. His parents wouldn’t let her. Then my mom confiscated my phone. Months passed before she returned it with a new number, and by that point, I had become so bitter about Theo abandoning me that I refused to reach out to him—or anyone else from Amity.
It takes Sage a beat to recognize me, of course, and when she does, her eyes bug out until I can see the whites. “ Nina ?”
I try to reply, and it sticks in my throat. I cough into my fist. “Hey.”
She looks at me. I look at her.
Then she turns her head and screams across the empty store: “ Quinton! Come here! ”
“Oh,” I say, quickly piecing together that this is what Theo was trying to warn me about before I got out of the truck. Oops. “Quinton works here, too?”
“No, he’s a cop, but he comes in to visit me when he has down time. He’s back there using the bathroom.” She holds up her left hand and wiggles it. For the first time, I notice the diamond perched on her ring finger. “We’re married.”
“What?” I sputter. They were friendly in high school, but mostly because of me and Theo. Privately, she had referred to him as a ‘redneck wannabe skater boy’ more than once. “Really?”
Sage nods. She smiles, and even after all this time, I recognize it as her most sincere version. “We got together after you—you know. Left.”
“Congratulations, Sage,” I say, meaning it. “I saw a picture of the wedding in Theo’s house, but I didn’t know who the bride was.”
I realize my mistake too late. Sage's eyes go even wider than when she first saw me. She grabs my arm as if we aren't practically strangers. “What the hell is going on? You’ve been hanging out with Theo?”
I sigh. “It’s such a long story.”
She gestures at the empty store around us. “I’ve got time.”
Thankfully, Quinton comes around the corner then. He’s in a full police uniform, gun and all. His hair is cut army-short, like in his wedding photo. I never would have recognized him at first—or second, or third—glance. “Hey—whoa. What?”
I wonder how many more times I’m going to have some version of this same conversation. “Hi, Quinton.”
“Now I know why Theo hasn’t wanted to go to the bar this week,” he says, and his tone isn’t exactly warm. I force myself to keep my mouth shut against the defensive words that threaten to come out. If Quinton wants to be upset with me for hurting his friend—and his wife—then that’s fine. I can’t blame him. “What are you doing here?”
I sigh, loud and long. “A lot has happened. I’ll catch you up,” I add, speaking directly to Sage, “but the reason I came in here is... I’m back in town, staying with Theo, and I need a job.”
“Oh,” she says, surprised. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Sage,” Quinton warns.
“What?” She crosses her arms and fixes him with a withering look. “That sign has been up for weeks and not a single other person has applied. Do you want me to have to keep working overtime?”
They have a brief staring contest that Quinton loses. “Can you come in tomorrow around nine to meet with Judith?” Sage asks me. “I'm the assistant manager, but she does the hiring.”
Quinton glares at me, and briefly, I wonder if I should decline. Then I imagine walking back out to Theo and telling him that actually, I haven’t yet reached the point in my life where I’m capable of taking care of myself.
“Sure,” I tell them. “I’ll be here.”
** *
That night, Theo surprises me by revealing that he still has his old truck. I haven’t seen it because he uses it to haul things around on his property, and it’s been parked behind some thick brush. I wait in the driveway as he drives it over the hill, my stomach fluttering when I see it again. It’s the same truck he drove in high school, the one we took to work and parties and the gas station for dollar sodas. The one where we had sex for the first time—and most of the times after that.
Most significantly, it’s also the truck that Theo was pushed up against as he was put into handcuffs. I think it heals a little part of me to see him casually steering it into his enormous garage, elbow out the window, grin on his face.
“Enjoy,” he says when he tosses me the keys. I snatch them out of the air, swing them on my index finger. “No guys in the back, alright?”
“We’ll see,” I say coolly. “Lots of room to roll around back there.”
I stay long enough to watch Theo’s eyes spark at my not-so-subtle reference, and then I saunter away.
In the morning, I dress in a completely new outfit—sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers—and drive myself to the general store. Mrs. Wilson’s daughter, Judith, and I barely exchange two sentences before she hands me an apron and instructs Sage to train me on the register.
After thirty minutes, it becomes clear that I don’t actually need register training, so I start learning the specifics of the store, facing shelves, and running stock. Quinton comes by around lunchtime to see Sage. He gives me the cold shoulder, refusing to even look in my direction. I keep my head down and let him be that way.
“Is this weird for you?” Sage asks me that afternoon, after Quinton has left and Judith is in the back. “No offense, but you look like you’ve become used to a life that’s a lot more luxurious than this.”
“What do you mean?”
She gestures toward her own head. “I mean...your hair looks treated. And you obviously had that surgery your mom always wanted to save money for.”
“Yeah.” I continue stocking bubble gum on the display in front of the counter, giving the task more focus than it warrants. “Well, I won’t be retouching my roots anytime soon. But no, this isn’t weird.”
Strangely enough, I'm telling the truth—it’s not weird at all. A few weeks ago, I never would have imagined that I’d be back in here. If I hadn’t run into Theo that day at the country club—or come to my senses about Daniel some other way—I'd be at my mom’s, putting the final touches on the wedding and stealing moments on the phone with my fiancé, trying to convince him to summon some enthusiasm.
Now that she’s opened the door to the changes in my appearance and not been rebuked, Sage continues to probe. “Did you get your nose done, too?”
“I figured I might as well.”
The bell over the door chimes, announcing the entrance of a customer. I automatically tense up, and when I look over my shoulder, I see a middle-aged man whom I recognize but can't name. He pays no attention to us; Sage calls out a greeting, then lowers her voice to speak to me. “What did Theo say about it?”
I snort. “What didn’t he say?”
She hums sympathetically. “Was he upset?”
“I wouldn’t say upset, exactly.” I finish with the bubble gum and grab a box of chocolate bars. “I’m being a shitty friend—I've barely asked about you."
"I think whatever you've got going on is more interesting."
As much as I am trying to change the subject in my own interest, I'm not completely self-absorbed. Sage and I had been best friends since third grade. Not reaching out to Theo was one thing, but not reaching out to her …yeah. I'm a bitch. "Tell me how you and Quinton got together.”
She tells me about how, after I disappeared and Theo went to college, she was left with more questions than answers about what had happened. Quinton went to college that fall, too, but decided it wasn't for him at the end of his freshman year. By the time he came back to town, Peyton and Lori Ann were leaving, and that left Sage without any of her closest high school friends. She started working for the Wilsons and hanging out with Quinton, who had begun to grow apart from Theo—something that surprises me to hear, since they seem good now. After a year of slowly growing closer, Quinton and Sage went to the state fair together. He kissed her on top of the Ferris wheel, and they’ve been together ever since.
I never would have imagined the two of them as a couple, but Sage is glowing and beaming throughout the entire story, and I allow myself to think that I helped make something good happen.